Covid-19: the Air Liquide Foundation at work

In response to the Covid-19 crisis, the Air Liquide Foundation contacted its research organizations and partner associations in March 2020 to offer them emergency aid. The Foundation's objectives in the face of this crisis are twofold:

• supporting the beneficiaries most affected by Covid-19,
• better understanding the action of the virus in the lungs and improving the management of patients with respiratory impairment.

Research projects

As part of the emergency response, the Board of the Air Liquide Foundation is supporting the research teams at La Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, the International Center for Infectiology Research in Lyon, the Grenoble Alpes University Hospital Center and Grenoble Alpes University, the Institut Pasteur, the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona as well as the University of Liège.

The work of these research teams particularly aims to:

• improve the understanding and diagnosis, in particular by identifying biomarkers predictive of disease progression,
• carry out a quantitative assessment of human and animal exposure via inhaled air and determine the risks and means of prevention,
• improve ventilatory monitoring  in the patient's bed and thus facilitate the work of caregivers,
• identify future innovative antiviral therapeutic approaches.

The Foundation is also studying other projects from European research organizations working on respiratory treatments of Covid-19 and is committed to responding to them as soon as possible.

Projects for the benefit of the most vulnerable

The Project Selection Committee has granted aid to partner associations whose beneficiaries are particularly fragile. This grant makes it possible:

• to support shelters for dependent persons in Italy, Spain, France and India and a medical center in the United States,
• to support families from the most excluded communities and street youth (food, hygiene and medical products...) in Morocco, Senegal, Togo, India (Delhi, Noida, Chennai) and the Philippines (Metro Manila & Cebu),
• to break the isolation of the homeless and isolated people in France,
• to carry out awareness campaigns in underprivileged or rural communities on Covid-19 and on basic protective measures in India and Togo.

For more information, please contact us: contact.fondation@airliquide.com.