Epidemiologist - Polio Outbreak Response at Avram Corporation

Tasks

• Identify sources of infection and strategies for implementing control activities for outbreak investigation and response for wild poliovirus or vaccine-derived poliovirus cases for the purpose of documenting and interrupting virus transmission.
• Perform data collection, management, analysis and reporting activities in compliance with the Outbreak Response Plan and other global and national guidelines used at the national, regional, and district levels for investigation of AFP cases in the regions/districts and review of weekly/monthly surveillance data.
• Assist with the mobilization GPEI resources to assist the country in creating settlement level maps of communities, including the mapping of the accessibility to health catchment areas (areas accessible, semi-accessible, not accessible), the mapping of special populations with population estimates (nomads, refugees, IDPs, etc.)
• Assist with developing or updating and implementing a comprehensive country actions plan to improve polio outbreak response, including specific and detailed action points to improve access to populations in hard/difficult to reach areas and special populations, and review and adapt districts microplans accordingly.
• Participate in pre-campaign monitoring and supervision activities to assist the regions/provinces and districts, particularly in the identified high risk districts, in preparation of micro plan, session plan and work plan for the SIAs, develop implementation plan (including coordination, logistics, microplanning, social mobilization) and monitoring and supervision plan in line with the Outbreak Response Plan and National SIA guidelines.
• Collaborate with the MOH and other partners to brainstorm ways to enhance AFP surveillance and involve private health sectors in the AFP surveillance networking system.
• Provide support to, and monitor STOP staff in their activities.
• Travel frequently to the identified low performing regions/districts and high risk areas to support the active case search/Active case finding of AFP (Acute flaccid paralysis), review of medical records, if there are possible missed AFP cases and provide technical assistance as per needed at the district as well as the health facility level.
• Actively engage in surveillance activities.
• Participate in capacity building activities of the surveillance officers at different levels, including teaching, mentoring, and advising on surveillance activities.
• Conduct on-the-job trainings on the topic of outbreak response and AFP surveillance for grantee and make concrete recommendations for increasing/building capacity for improving outbreak response and surveillance performances.

Required Qualifications

• Medical Degree (preferred), MPH or Nurse/Premedical Degree required.
• Ability to be deployed for six to twelve months within Central African Republic, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, and/or Mozambique required.
• Three years’ experience in polio and/or routine immunization activities, preferably in the Chad Basin region.
• Experience collaborating with UN, USG and other international organizations working on immunization activities as well as the MoPH.
• English; French a plus but not required.