World Health Organization
Purpose of the Position
In the context of the WHO Health Emergencies incident management system, at the country level, the incumbent will support the district response, coordinate and implement technical activities directed towards public health readiness and response, surveillance of outbreaks and health emergencies, scale up the implementation of evidence-based interventions, facilitate policy and decision making processes through improved health information coverage, analysis and quality throughout the full cycle of the incident response based on innovative approaches that utilize available and affordable technologies. The incumbent will advise national actors on public health issues related to emergency response and liaise with other sectors in providing a public health response during emergencies and consequent outbreaks.
Objectives of the Programme and of the immediate Strategic Objectives
The mission of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme is to help countries, and to coordinate international action, to prevent, prepare for, detect, rapidly respond to, and recover from outbreaks and emergencies.
Organizational Context
Support national or district efforts towards emergency response for floods through technical assistance at the national or subnational level in the country of assignment. Under the direct supervision of the EPR Team Leader, the incumbent will perform the required duties within the framework of WHO program and policy documents.
Deliverables
Reporting to the Team Lead, and based on priorities set by the Incident Manager and the WHO Head of Country Office, and working closely with counterparts at the Ministry of Health (MoH), respective regional office and HQ , the incumbent will work in close collaboration with relevant technical officers at the national level and subnational levels.:
- Prompt deployment to districts affected with disease outbreaks and or acute events of public health concern. Co-develop the guidelines, tools and indicators for effective disease surveillance in the response.
- Coordinate and manage surveillance technical activities and programs in the assigned districts, within the context of the health emergencies programme as per national guidelines.
- Strengthen the capacities of surveillance teams for the effective and sustained surveillance of epidemic prone diseases through training courses on field investigation, detection, data management, and rapid response to epidemics and health outbreaks.
- Conduct, in collaboration with other team members, real-time analysis of outbreak intelligence data, from a broad range of sources including non-health sectors, for epidemic forecasting and detection.
- Promote the effective coordination for rapid assessment, surveillance and response activities for epidemic-prone diseases in consultation with Country Office, Regional Office and HQ as well as MoH and other international health partners including UN agencies and NGOs.
- Analyse, systematize, and disseminate scientific and evidence-based technical information and knowledge; support the development of the WHO Situation Reports, other related regular and ad-hoc surveillance reports.
- Undertake regular field supervision visits to assess and evaluate the implementation of the emergency response and surveillance activities, identify gaps and recommend corrective actions based on key performance indicators.
- Conduct infection control and case management training for health workers in locations of operations and contribute to patinet care
- Provide input to communications and information products (situation reports, Health Cluster bulletins, outbreak bulletins etc.) as required
- Perform any other incident-specific related duties, as required by the functional supervisor.
Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Qualifications
Essential: University degree in medicine, nursing, epidemiology or statistics, or public health from an accredited/recognized institute.
Desirable: Advanced university degree in public health, post-graduate certification in public health, tropical medicine, database management or health-related training in communicable diseases.
Experience
Essential: At least two (2) years’ related experience at the national or international level in epidemiology and the implementation of public health surveillance, outbreak investigation or health emergency response in humanitarian settings.
Desirable: Prior working experience at field level with MoH, WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, NGOs or recognized humanitarian organizations with expertise in disaster and outbreak response.
Use of Language skills:
Essential: Excellent knowledge of English
Desirable: Knowledge of the local language(s)
Other Skills (e.g. IT):
- Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.
- Working knowledge of online data collection applications, statistical analysis packages (Stata, SPSS, etc).
Functional Skills/Knowledge
- Demonstrated knowledge of public health fieldwork, clinical care, conducting disease surveillance activities, or other relevant expertise.
- Good interpersonal, oral and written communication skills with fluency in oral and written English
- Good negotiation and diplomatic skills and ability to work in multi-cultural settings and culturally sensitive communities.
- Energetic and able to work and live in insecure and hardship conditions in the field
- Time management and ability to prioritize multiple tasks
- A self-motivated person able to work without close supervision
- Able to work effectively in a diverse team environment..
Languages and level required
Additional information
- WHO has zero-tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuseof authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report toWHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated historyof SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
- WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.