Consultant – Surveillance on Meningitis 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 position below:

Job Title: Consultant – Surveillance on Meningitis

Job ID: 2409625
Location: Anywhere
Job type: Full-time
Contractual Arrangement: External consultant
Contract Duration: 1 – 11 months
Organization: HQ/EHI High Impact Epidemics WHE
Travel: The consultant is expected to travel.  

Purpose of consultancy

• To provide technical expertise to deliver on the surveillance pillar of the defeat meningitis by 2030 roadmap at all levels of the organization by enhancing e-surveillance implementation and disease surveillance standards. 

Background

• In 2020, the WHA adopted the defeating meningitis by 2030 roadmap. Within this roadmap, three visionary goals were set: 1) to eliminate bacterial meningitis epidemics, 2) to reduce cases of vaccine-preventable bacterial meningitis by 50% and deaths by 70%, and 3) to reduce disability and improve quality of life after meningitis due to any cause. The consultant will focus their work on the first two goals of the roadmap, specifically within the pillar of disease surveillance.

Deliverables

• The consultant is expected to conduct most activities within the contract with little supervision while working collaboratively with the rest of the meningitis teams in HQ and the region.
• Deliverable 1: develop the meningitis SMART guidelines in conjunction with the Surveillance Systems Department by the end of the consultancy.
• Deliverable 2: throughout the consultancy, coordinate the DHIS2 developers group by coordinating the development of the technical products and the administrative procedures of the developers group.
• Deliverable 3: implement jointly with AFRO the DHIS2 the implementation of the DHIS2-developed dashboards for automatic sitreps and ICG requests in four countries in the AFRO region.
• Deliverable 4: implement jointly with EMRO the implementation of the e-surveillance dashboards in two countries in EMRO.
• Deliverable 5: by the end of the consultancy, write a manuscript for a peer-reviewed publication about the e-surveillance project with examples from the countries. 

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Educational Qualifications:
Essential:

• A first university degree in epidemiology, demography, statistics, health sciences, medicine/veterinary sciences or a related discipline that includes quantitative methods.
• An advanced university degree in a health-related field or epidemiology.
• Completion of a field epidemiology training programme (FETP).

Desirable:

• PhD in one of the above-related areas.

Experience:
Essential:

• Five to seven years of relevant experience at national and international levels, including demonstrated roles in implementing public health surveillance and data analysis methods. 

Desirable:

• Experience working with WHO, especially at the regional or national level.
• Experience using DHIS2, with a main focus on developing DHIS2 dashboards and questionnaires. If no experience with DHIS2 is available, experience with other dashboards, electronic data collection tools, and statistical software (R, Stata, SAS) would also be desirable.

Skills/Knowledge:
Essential:

• Management of surveillance systems and development of surveillance workflows and questionnaires.
• Survey setting skills to develop sampling strategies and associated questionnaires.
• Use of statistical software for data analysis such as R.

Languages and level required:
Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English.
• Intermediate knowledge of French.

Desirable:

• Expert knowledge of  French.
• Intermediate knowledge of Arabic or Spanish.

Remuneration

• Band level B: USD 7,000 – 9,980 per month
• Living expenses (A living expense is payable to on-site consultants who are internationally recruited).

Application Closing Date
24th January, 2025.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online