Senior Technical Officer – Surveillance and Disease Response

The Makerere University School of Public Health Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (MakSPH-METS) Program is a five-year (2020-2025) CDC-funded Cooperative Agreement. The MakSPH-METS program emerged out of the growing recognition of the importance of evidence-based decision making for an AIDS Free Generation in Uganda. The overall purpose of the Program is to establish coordinated and effective national and district systems for the management of strategic information for a robust HIV response. We seek to recruit a dynamic, competent and experienced candidate to fill the following position:

POSITION SUMMARY

JOB TITLE: SENIOR TECHNICAL OFFICER – SURVEILLANCE AND DISEASE RESPONSE

Reports to                                                     :             Manager Programs 

Responsible for the supervision of              :             Surveillance Specialists

Epidemiologist (Disease Response) 

The position is intended to enable the understanding of disease burden, incidence, programmatic loss to follow-up, integration, linkages and referral services across interventions and facilities.  Routine and targeted surveillance activities include aggregate, case-based, sentinel, syndromic and event-based methodologies across facilities and communities for priority infectious diseases and events including mortality under the health security programs of the MoH.  It also includes populations under specific programmatic coverage for HIV, TB and COVID-19.  Health security surveillance activities are prioritized to prevent, detect and respond to Public Health threats and outbreaks.  Programmatic surveillance serves to minimize missed opportunities in the comprehensive care and treatment of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses and TB. The post holder will coordinate activities related to training of health workers and IP staff in most of the above surveillance programs in which METS is engaged and case-based surveillance and recency testing for HIV/AIDS.  The incumbent will work closely with MoH (especially the Department of Integrated Epidemiology, Surveillance and Public Health Emergencies, ACP, NTLP, DHI and the national reference laboratories), CDC and METS surveillance, and Data Science and Informatics counterparts to plan and support the implementation of surveillance, disease response, and routine programmatic activities across PEPFAR, Global Health Security, CARES, and COVID-19 activities.  This includes, but is not limited to the National Integrated Sentinel Surveillance (NISS) framework and the AFI, SARI/ILI, and mortality surveillance within the framework; routine aggregate and case-based surveillance under IDSR and the HMIS, mTRAC and eIDSR systems; the national surveillance data warehouse and the regional surveillance health information exchange; HIV and TB case-based surveillance; and HIV recency testing.  The incumbent will also coordinate the implementation of unique identification and characterization of persons newly diagnosed with HIV or AIDS and tracking them over time and place and participate actively in the technical team planning and implementing unique identifiers and client registries.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Serve as primary liaison between METS and the MoH and CDC on all surveillance and disease response activities.
2. Keep abreast of developments in HIV/TB surveillance and progress in order to advise and recommend tools and strategies to increase program performance and results.
3. Keep abreast of developments in disease surveillance across methodologies and disease domains to ensure METS supports capacity development within MoH across the health systems and contributes to the building and maintenance of robust surveillance systems.
4. Keep abreast of developments in disease response activities within the PHEOC and the COVID-19 and other Incident Management Teams (IMTs) established to support current and future outbreak response.
5. Liaise with stakeholders at all levels (CDC, UCSF, HISP, MoH, Regional IPs and District Health Officers) to facilitate implementation of surveillance and disease response activities.
6. Provide technical support to District Health Teams, IP staff and site level staff to implement HIV recency testing and case-based surveillance.
7. Lead the regular engagement with stakeholders regarding the required elements for cased-based HIV/AIDS reporting and work across Ugandan health system reporting stakeholders to develop the technology to implement it.
8. Coordinate capacity-building initiatives for district and facility staff and evaluate implementation of surveillance and disease response, HIV and TB case-based reporting.
9. Coordinate capacity building for districts, IPs and MOH to analyze and use the data obtained from surveillance, disease response and HIV/TB programmatic activities.
10. Take responsibility for leading Surveillance and Disease Response team members to modify and monitor key performance indicators, report and record progress of activities while ensuring that agreed deliverables are met.
11. Manage the preparation of Surveillance and Disease Response team documents, work plans and reports.
12. Follow up on Surveillance guidelines and infuse this learning into health security and HIV/TB program review and implementation.
13. Supervise and appraise staff in accordance with the Makerere University policies and strategic plan.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s Degree in Public Health, Epidemiology or related field.
• At least 5 years’ work experience in surveillance and disease response.

Required Knowledge, Skills and abilities:

• Experience in working in partnership with or within the MoH in HIV, TB or heath security

APPLICATION PROCESS

i)            Qualified and interested candidates are invited to submit the following application documents

and a motivation letter clearly highlighting the position being applied for and address this to;

The Dean,

Makerere University School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7072,

Kampala, Uganda

ii)    Application Documents

a)   Motivational Letter

b)   Resume with contacts of 3 professional referees c)    Copies of all relevant academic documents

iii)          Soft copies of the applications should be submitted as one PDF file to the following email address info.dceh@musph.ac.ug by 5:00pm on October 15th, 2021. Please quote the position you are applying for in the subject head of your email.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.