The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has embarked on introducing Controlled Human Infection Studies (CHIS).
The innovative research model involves deliberately exposing healthy volunteers to pathogens within a controlled environment.
CHIS is also known as Controlled Human Infection Model studies (CHIMs).
It involves deliberately infecting healthy volunteers with specific pathogens in a regulated manner to study disease progression, and host-pathogen interactions, and assess the efficacy of novel vaccines.
This method allows for faster and more cost-effective outcomes compared to traditional large-sample clinical trials.