Researchers have found that the safety and efficacy of treating patients with mpox in virtual wards may be comparable to that of treatment administered in a hospital—and may be more cost-effective. These findings will be presented at the upcoming 2023 European Conference of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, according to a press release on EurekAlert.
Researchers explained that because physicians had limited treatment options for patients who had been infected early on in the mpox outbreak, these patients required hospitalization; however, as mpox vaccines and more data on disease severity became available, researchers were able to establish a virtual ward after recognizing that hospital treatment was not always necessary. In the new virtual ward, patients received prescriptions at home and regularly communicated with their physicians using phone calls and photographs to relay information about their status, symptoms, mental health, and quarantine obligations. Researchers also evaluated the cases of 191 patients treated in virtual wards and discovered that medications were effectively delivered for 60 patients who received painkillers and 35 who received antibiotics. Safe times for ending quarantine were also effectively established at a median of 10 days after infection and observed by patients in the virtual wards. The researchers noted that 14% of the patients eventually required hospital admissions for more serious infections; however, their stays lasted a median of 4 days and saved a total of 2,100 hospital bed days. “We demonstrated that a virtual ward can be rapidly established to respond to emerging health threats, and the majority of [patients] with mpox can be safely managed virtually. Such strategies provide a model to respond to future outbreaks,” the researchers concluded.