Surveillance Officer at World Health Organization (WHO)

World Health Organization (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

We are recruiting to fill the vacant position below:

Job Position: Surveillance Officer
Ref Id: 1803080
Job Location: Yobe
Grade: NO-B
Contractual Arrangement: Individual service contractor
Contract duration: 6 months
Schedule: Full-time

Duties and Responsibilities

• In the duty station, 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, the incumbent will act as the technical expert for the surveillance programme.
• S/he will provide technical oversight for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public health policies and programmes pertaining to surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases particularly those with epidemic and pandemic potentials

Under the general supervision of the Incident Manager, under the daily supervision of the Team Lead, the incumbent performs the following functions:

• Coordinate and manage EWARS/IDSR surveillance activities to support the State Epidemiologist and the Disease Surveillance Notification Officer Coordinator.
• Coordinate outbreak investigations with the LGA-surveillance officers within the scope of the health emergencies programme,
• 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.
• Strengthen the capacities of the SMOH 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.
• Contribute to the elaboration of effective rapid assessment for epidemic-prone diseases in consultation with the 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.
• Undertake regular field supervision visits to assess and evaluate the implementation of surveillance activities, identify gaps and recommend corrective actions based on key performance indicators.
• Facilitate the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) including participation in the process of verification and risk assessment on reported public health events.
• Perform any other incident-specific related duties, as required by the functional supervisor.

Requirements
Qualifications:

• Field Epidemiology Training Program or Master University Degree in Epidemiology, Statistics, Database Management or Public Health from an accredited/recognized institute. - Essential
• Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. - Desirable

Experience:

• At least five years’ related experience, at the national levels, quantitative epidemiology and the implementation of public health surveillance, outbreak investigation and response in humanitarian settings. - Essential
• Prior humanitarian working experience at field level with WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or with an international non-governmental organization with expertise in disaster and outbreak response. - Desirable

Knowledge and 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.