Surveillance Officer

Contract

This is a NO-C contract. This kind of contract is known as National Professional Officers. It is normally only for nationals. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education. More about NO-C contracts.

Position Title: Surveillance Officer

PN: 421635

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME

The mission of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme (The Programme) is to help countries, to coordinate international action, to prevent, prepare for, detect, rapidly respond to, and recover from outbreaks and emergencies, and to support the government with necessary policy advice to transform the health system to be stronger, effective and efficient.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

1. Co-develop the guidelines, tools, protocols, implementation framework and indicators for effective integrated disease surveillance and response system, and Rapid Response Teams framework at the national, subnational and community levels in Somalia.

2. Coordinate and manage surveillance technical activities and programs, within the context of the outbreak and health emergencies programme at the country level.

3. Facilitate the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) including participation in the process of verification and risk assessment on reported public health events.

4. 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 in collaboration with partners and the Federal Member States.

5. Strengthen the capacities of health workers for the implementation of Health Information Systems in Puntland, Galmudug and Banaadir.

6. Strengthen the capacity of front-line health workers for field epidemiology through developing a pyramidal model training plan leading to introducing and implementing Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (FELTP)

7. 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.

8. Promote the effective coordination for community rapid assessment, surveillance and response activities for epidemic-prone diseases at national and subnational level, in consultation with Country Office, Regional Office and HQ as well as local, regional, and national health entities and other international health partners including UN agencies and NGOs.

9. Provide technical guidance for the management of a unified information system to ensure availability of core data country files and other information on related technical areas such as: case incidence; case management surveillance data; laboratory surveillance data; contact tracing, etc.; by conducting auditing and mapping of current HMIS- related mechanism in Somalia to identify potential modes of integration.

10. 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.

11. Undertake regular field supervision visits to assess and evaluate the implementation of IDSRS (Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response activities), identify gaps and recommend corrective actions based on key performance indicators.

12. Assess the surveillance component of the national public health laboratory system to identify strengths and weaknesses for disease confirmation and participation in an integrated disease surveillance system.

13. Work with the Federal Ministry of health and other partners to develop an operational plan to strengthen the capacity of public health laboratory and the involvement in disease surveillance

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education

Essential: First level university degree in epidemiology, database management or public health. Desirable: Advanced university degree in quantitative epidemiology or health related field. specialized training in communicable diseases and disease surveillance response.

Experience

Essential: At least five years' related experience, with international exposure, in quantitative epidemiology and the implementation of Integrated Disease surveillance and response systems, outbreak investigation and response in humanitarian settings. Desirable: Prior humanitarian working experience at field level with WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or with an international nongovernmental organization with expertise in disaster and outbreak response. Prior experience working on inter-sectoral projects or programmes

Skills

• Demonstrated knowledge of surveillance and monitoring systems as related to emergency response relief operations, complemented by skills in the field of epidemiological or statistical data collection, assessment, analysis and the evaluation and monitoring in a public health context.
• Proven ability to multitask across various planning and implementation processes within a highly demanding environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge, competency and professional skills on the public health aspects of infectious disease control, epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response with particular attention to application of an all hazard approach in the context of the International Health Regulations and the use of event based and indicator based surveillance, as well as descriptive epidemiology and principles of public health in communicable disease surveillance and response.

WHO Competencies

• Teamwork
• Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences
• Communication
• Producing results
• Ensuring the effective use of resources

Enhanced WHO global Competencies model at http://www.who.int/employment/WHO_competencies_EN.pdf?ua=1 Teamwork Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences Communication Producing results

Use of Language Skills

Essential: Expert knowledge of English. Desirable: Intermediate knowledge of French. Intermediate knowledge of Local language.

REMUNERATION

Remuneration comprises an annual base salary starting at USD 39,097 (subject to mandatory deductions for pension contributions and health insurance, as applicable) and 30 days of annual leave.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level

• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.

• A written test may be used as a form of screening.

• In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.

• Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to WHO Staff Regulations, Staff Rules and Manual.

• Staff members in other duty stations are encouraged to apply.

• For information on WHO's operations please visit: http://www.who.int.

• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.

• WHO's workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice.

• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.

• This is a National Professional Officer position. Therefore, only applications from nationals of the country where the duty station is located will be accepted. Applicants who are not nationals of this country will not be considered.

• For assessment of your application, please ensure that: 1- Your profile is properly completed and updated; 2- All required details regarding your qualifications, education and training are provided; 3- Your experience records are entered with elaboration on tasks performed at the time. Kindly note that CVs/PHFs inserted via LinkedIn are not accessible.