The federal government would have to establish guidelines for training doctors in prescribing opioids and increasing the use of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, under a new bill co-sponsored by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

The bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services to develop training guidelines that would apply to all federal health care facilities, of which there are dozens scattered around West Virginia.

Training guidelines would also apply to doctors at Veterans Health Administration locations.

One set of training guidelines would deal with pain management, best practices for prescribing pain medications and identifying patients with the potential for substance.

“We must fight this terrible epidemic from all fronts,” Capito, R-W.Va., said in a prepared statement. “This bill will help save lives, better equip our health care professionals with tools to treat overdoses and give West Virginians suffering from addiction a second chance.”

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and a House version has bipartisan sponsorship as well.

About 25,000 people die annually from opioid overdoses, with West Virginia leading the nation in overdose deaths, per capita. Nearly 2 million Americans either abused or were dependent on opioids in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The skyrocketing use of prescription painkillers, which began in the 1990s, was driven in large part by aggressive marketing toward doctors who then wrote more and more prescriptions.

Inadequate training of prescribers has been cited as an area of concern.

In a recent interview with the Gazette-Mail, President Barack Obama noted that throughout five years, and thousands of hours of medical school, doctors spend only about 11 hours studying pain medication.

“They may be a great surgeon, they may be a great internal medicine specialist, but if the patient comes in and says ‘I’m hurting,’ they’re just writing a prescription without really figuring out what’s best for that patient and how do we avoid addiction,” Obama said.

The second set of training guidelines concerns the drug naloxone, which can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, with life-saving effects.

Naloxone reversed more than 26,000 overdose cases between 1996 and 2014, according to the CDC.

The training guidelines would address co-prescribing -- prescribing naloxone, in addition to opioids, to pain patients with elevated risks of overdose.

West Virginia passed a bill last year allowing first responders to carry naloxone and allowing doctors to prescribe the drug to friends and family members of opioid addicts.

Just last week, two Charleston police officers were honored for using naloxone to save the life of an overdosing man on the city’s West Side. But the West Virginia State Police has said they will not carry naloxone, citing cost as one reason why.

To that end, Capito’s bill also includes a grant program to give state health departments money to purchase naloxone and train health professionals in its use. The bill would provide $12.5 million in funds between now and 2020.