The WHO Emergencies Programme Clinical Management team aims to improve health care for patients in all health emergencies. Providing respiratory support during critical illness is extremely challenging, especially where resources are limited and the health care environment may be disrupted.

The WHO O2CoV2 study was designed to understand oxygen use for patients with acute respiratory infection due to COVID-19 in LMICs.

Preliminary results were presented to the WHO symposium on meeting the global needs for oxygen and respiratory care (4 October 2023, Toronto, Canada). The report of the meeting is accessible here.

WHO is now partnering with interested global acute care clinical trials networks, hospitals, organisations, and other interested investigators to form the WHO Global O2ptimization of respiratory support collaboration. This collaboration will investigate the optimal approaches to delivering oxygen and providing respiratory support for patients with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and hypoxaemic respiratory failure across the globe, in a range of resource settings.

An expression of interest was sought for this collaboration in February 2024 and was reopened in June 2024. Please go to Global O2ptimization of respiratory support collaboration to register interest.