PITTSBURGH — Western Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor has begun his tour of 25 counties as the region battles a heroin overdose epidemic.

U.S. Attorney David Hickton on Tuesday visited Washington County, where there have been 222 overdoses since August, including 33 fatalities. Thirty-six of those who survived in the county were treated with Narcan by police or paramedics, Hickton said.

The county is one of two hit by more than 30 non-fatal overdoses in recent weeks.

Hickton, who was joined by District Attorney Eugene Vittone, announced charges against a 24-year-old Washington County man, Ronald McMillian, who is accused of supplying some of the heroin that caused at least two of 27 overdoses in a two-day span last August.

Hickton also spent time helping to train local police in a new effort to combat overdoses by gathering better information from addicts and their families.

“Our plan is centered around analyzing every overdose,” Hickton said. “That’s how we marry public health and public safety.”

In the past, police typically focused more attention on fatal overdoses.

But police are now encouraged to gather information from nonfatal overdose scenes, including any street brand names found on empty stamp bags, and any information from the addict’s phone that might help authorities identify dealers.

Police are being trained to enter that information onto forms that will be processed by a so-called Fusion Center in Cranberry Township.

That’s where the FBI and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents will analyze the data for overdose patterns, hoping to identify super-potent heroin batches that lead to groups of overdoses and the dealers behind them, Hickton said.