CHIS – CONTROLLED HUMAN INFECTION STUDIES

July 26, 2023

India is taking its first step towards introducing Controlled Human Infection Studies (CHIS), a research model used in other countries for vaccine and treatment development.
Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Bioethics Unit has introduced a consensus policy statement on ethical conduct of CHIS in India.
It aims to address ethical issues of CHIS so that research can be conducted without compromising on ethical principles while ensuring protection of human participants.
CHIS refers to the research methodology that involves intentionally exposing healthy human volunteers to a specific pathogen or infectious agent under controlled conditions.
This is done for developing models of infection, understanding host-pathogen interactions and/or testing vaccines and therapeutics.
ICMR has cautioned that CHIS is a highly complex area and may require collaborations at different levels between researchers, institutions, organisations and/or between different countries.