An “opioid surveillance” officer will start work in the Yukon next month to provide a clearer picture of how fentanyl and other opioid use is affecting the territory, according to the Yukon’s chief medical officer of health.

“I think it’s very important for us to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s going on,” Brendan Hanley told the Star Wednesday afternoon.

He was referring to the fentanyl-fuelled opioid crisis that has claimed the lives of at least seven Yukoners since April 2016.

The federal government has committed a public health officer to the Yukon and several other jurisdictions to help authorities create “a detailed map of what’s going on with opioid use and overuse in the territory,” according to Hanley.

The individual responsible for what Hanley said is called opioid surveillance will gather detailed information about opioids prescriptions in the territory, drug-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations, among other things.

“What’s the profile of people who overdose and therefore how can we help target our interventions better in terms of awareness raising?” Hanley posited. It’s this kind of question the opioid surveillance officer will help answer.

He or she will be working under the chief medical officer of health.

Hanley said he’s not willing to release the name of the individual who has been selected for the position. He or his deputy officer, Catherine Elliott, will remain the public face of the office, he said.

The Yukon has seen other public health officers doing this kind of surveillance work.

Ottawa loaned an epidemiologist to the Yukon government in April 2016 after the first fentanyl overdose death in the territory.

“That helped to get things set up,” Hanley said.

“As federal support has solidified, they’ve been able to offer us more robust resources.”

Seven fentanyl deaths in the Yukon might seem insignificant in comparison to hundreds of opioid fatalities in other provinces over the last 18 months, including B.C. alone.

However, the Yukon’s small population means statistics aren’t always the best measure of the crisis’s impacts.

“It’s as much of a concern in Yukon as is it anywhere else in the country,” Hanley said.

“We’ve had a chronic problem on opioid overuse for many years and substance use in general. And now we have the arrival of fentanyl to a somewhat susceptible population. A population at risk.”

Hanley said the territory is seeing about one confirmed fentanyl overdose a week, though sometimes that number is slightly higher.

Fentanyl overdoses are identified when a urine screen is ordered.