Three people have died from drug overdoses within five days in Chittenden County, police said Thursday, though it's unclear whether the fatalities are linked to a particular batch of drugs.

At least two of the deaths appear to involve opioids, wrote Jackie Corbally, the Burlington Police Department's drug, mental health, homelessness policy and operations manager, in a press release.

"These deaths may be clustered due to coincidence," Corbally wrote. "Nonetheless, three deaths in five days is cause for concern."

Chittenden County overdose deaths dropped by half in 2018, from 35 to 17, even as the state tally continued to rise. Local officials have credited the drop to concerted intervention and response efforts, including the availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
Still, the county experiences periodic spates of overdoses, which can sometimes be traced to the local drug supply. In January, the University of Vermont Medical Center treated seven patients for overdoses within seven hours. None of those patients died, state health officials said.