Ebola Response Consortium Surveillance Manager

Job posted by: International Rescue Committee (IRC)-USA - Thu, 2 Jul 2015

Job Details:

Organisation: International Rescue Committee (IRC)-USA

Deadline Mon, 31 Aug 2015

Job type: Permanent

Location: Sierra Leone

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BACKGROUND: The International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, provides relief, rehabilitation, and post-conflict reconstruction support to victims of natural disaster, oppression, and violent conflict in 42 countries. The IRC is committed to bold leadership, innovation, and creative partnerships. Active in public health, education, livelihoods, women's empowerment, youth development, and protection and promotion of rights, IRC assists people from harm to home.

 

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented in scale and in the response required. No previous outbreak has had as many confirmed cases or as wide of a geographic spread. The situation is complicated by the porous nature of the region’s borders, inaccessibility of the terrain, and the presence of multiple active sites of transmission. The outbreak in Sierra Leone started in May 2014 and spread rapidly due to porous borders, insufficient contact tracing and quarantine, community fears, and misperceptions. While significant progress has now been made in containing the outbreak, pockets of active transmission remain in both urban Freetown and in the northern districts, and thus intensive surveillance support will need to be sustained if the country hopes to achieve zero transmission.

 

The IRC is currently leading the Ebola Response Consortium (ERC), a group of fifteen non-governmental organizations who are supporting surveillance activities in nearly every district of Sierra Leone. One of the strategies that ERC partners are currently supporting is Community Event-Based Surveillance (CEBS), a nationally-approved approach that uses a network of Community Health Monitors (CHMs) to detect and report on a defined set of “trigger events” that may indicate that Ebola transmission was ongoing in a community so that these events can be rapidly investigated and followed up on by district case investigation teams. ERC partners have been supporting the implementation of CEBS in nine districts since January 2015 and have currently trained over 7,000 CHMs, who have reported over 3,400 trigger events to date and helped to identify several new confirmed Ebola cases.

 

SCOPE OF WORK: The ERC Surveillance Manager will be responsible for providing roving technical support to strengthen the implementation of CEBS and other ERC-supported surveillance activities (e.g. alert management, case investigation, contact tracing supervision) at district level. Working in close collaboration with the ERC partner organizations, District Health Management Teams (DHMTs), World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other district partners, the ERC Surveillance Manager will play a key role in both ensuring the technical quality of CEBS roll out and in building district capacity in community-based surveillance more broadly so that the CEBS approach can be efficiently transitioned into the national Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system when appropriate.

 

While the technical assistance provided by the ERC Surveillance Manager will vary by district and partner, it is envisioned that the primary areas of involvement will include supporting districts with CEBS data management and analysis, conducting regular field monitoring visits to assess CEBS performance and offer feedback and recommendations to ERC partners and DHMTs on means of improvement, and assisting firsthand in the roll-out of any CEBS trainings where required, including both refresher trainings and trainings related to the transition from CEBS to IDSR. The ERC Surveillance Manager may also be asked to feed into national-level discussions and longer-term strategic planning exercises regarding the transition of CEBS to IDSR and the integration of surveillance within the pre-existing Community Health Worker (CHW) program.

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Conduct regular district field monitoring visits to assess CEBS functionality and provide feedback and technical support to ERC partners and DHMTs
  • Develop and revise training materials and facilitate trainings to build Ministry of Health and ERC partner capacity in the development, implementation, and management of community-based disease surveillance activities
  • Review CEBS alert data on a weekly basis from assigned districts of responsibility and liaise with ERC partner staff to quickly clean and fill in missing data as necessary
  • Participate in any national “emergency surge” operations as required through traveling to districts with active transmission to provide technical assistance to partners on the core aspects of Ebola surveillance (e.g. alert and dispatch systems, case investigation, contact tracing, data management and analysis)
  • As requested, contribute to national-level discussions and strategic planning exercises regarding the future of community-based surveillance in Sierra Leone and assist in the development of any associated protocols and training materials
  • Attend National Surveillance Pillar meetings and other workshops, working groups, and coordination forums as required
  • Other surveillance-related tasks as requested by the ERC Surveillance Coordinator

 

REQUIREMENTS

  • Master’s degree in public health or epidemiology; completion of coursework in field epidemiology an asset
  • Knowledge of and demonstrated interest in infectious disease epidemiology and community-based disease surveillance
  • At least one year of experience in developing and implementing disease surveillance activities, preferably within a developing country or other resource-poor context
  • Demonstrated experience or ability to rapidly learn Ebola surveillance activities
  • Proficiency in data management (Microsoft Excel) with a strong understanding of monitoring and evaluation methodology
  • Energetic and self-driven with the ability to independently address and overcome challenges
  • Exceptionally patient with a strong commitment to teamwork and capacity-building
  • Ability to provide technical support and feedback with a high degree of tact and diplomacy
  • Knowledge of and experience with GIS mapping software preferred but not required
  • Willingness to travel frequently and live in modest accommodation
  • Ability to start immediately

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