Catch A Cold And Help Scientists Make New Vaccines

Under a new model, volunteers will be infected with viruses or bacteria

- Jacob Koshy

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is close to finalising three projects worth ₹135 crore, involving Indian and European scientists, to develop new influenza vaccines.

What will make these projects unique is that they involve a Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM): volunteers who take part in trials will be infected, under expert supervision, with infectious viruses or bacteria. Such studies, which are being employed in vaccine development in the United States, the United Kingdom and Kenya, are being considered in India.

A CHIM approach will speed up the process whereby scientists can quantify whether potential vaccine candidates can be effective in people and identify the factors that determine why some vaccinated people fall sick and others do not. The risk in such trials is that intentionally infecting healthy people with an active virus and causing them to be sick is against medical ethics. It also involves putting human lives in danger.

Ethics and guidance