Health and Nutrition Assistant

Details

Mission and objectives

Nuestra misión es que todos los niños, niñas y adolescentes, en todos los rincones del Perú, tengan la oportunidad de ejercer sus derechos. Teniendo en cuenta las desigualdades que afectan particularmente a las poblaciones rurales en las regiones andinas y amazónicas, así como a las personas que viven en entornos periurbanos, hemos priorizado nuestra presencia en dos regiones amazónicas: Ucayali y Loreto; una región andina: huancavelica; y un distrito en Lima: Carabayllo.

Context

Malnutrition:
Peru has gained global recognition for successfully reducing stunting in children under 5 from 23.2% in 2010 to 12.1% in 2020. This achievement is attributed to sustained political commitment, evidence-based interventions, and a period of unprecedented economic growth. However, the country still grapples with nutrition challenges, particularly high rates of overweight and obesity among school-aged children and adolescents. Despite the implementation of a law promoting healthy foods for children and adolescents in 2013, there is a continued need to raise awareness among families and build capacities in health and education personnel to fully implement the relevant components of the law.
UNICEF aims to address this issue in peri-urban districts of San Martin de Porres and Carabayllo in Northern Lima, focusing on interventions on school-aged children (6 – 11 years) and adolescents (12 – 17 years) with a 2-year project using the SBC model.
Immunization:
On May 26, 2023, Peru declared a Health Emergency due to a high risk of polio and measles outbreaks in the departments of Amazonas, Arequipa, Lambayeque, Lima, Loreto, Madre de Dios, Moquegua, Puno, San Martín, Tacna, Tumbes, Ucayali, and Callao to reduce the risk of transmission of polio and measles through vaccination. In this decree, the government has allocated US$7 million to vaccinate approximately 2.5 million children with IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine), OPV (oral polio vaccine), and MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccines, among other activities.
Annual vaccination coverage for polio (3erd dose) and MMR2 from 2019 to 2023 was below 95%, resulting in an accumulation of susceptibles to measles of 888,455 children under 5 years old, reaching a Risk Index (RI) of 1.65. An RI equal to or greater than 0.8 indicates that the assessed area has a high risk of allowing measles virus circulation and, consequently, the potential for outbreaks or epidemics.
On January 26, 2024, the Center for Epidemiology, Prevention, and Disease Control (CDC Peru) issued an alert regarding the risk of imported cases of measles, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome throughout the country. On January 29, the Ministry of Health confirmed an imported case of measles in a 21-year-old man who returned from Italy on January 7, prompting contact tracing and immunization activities. On the same day, the PAHO issued an alert for the Americas region, urging the maintenance of adequate vaccination coverage. On February 15, the Ministry of Health confirmed a second case of measles in a 10-month-old girl in Lima, activating an epidemiological perimeter and urging compliance with the national vaccination schedule. The last case of measles was in 2000.
Starting 2024, a single dose of the HPV vaccine has been included in the regular vaccination schedule for boys in the fifth grade of primary education, approximately between 9 and 13 years of age. This complements the dose received by girls of the same age. Many actions need to be carried out in schools and among parents to raise awareness about the importance of the HPV vaccine for both boys and girls.
Therefore, UNICEF will conduct an intervention in primary schools in the Loreto region. In addition to supporting advocacy efforts, the intervention aims to strengthen vaccination coverage, educate caregivers, and conduct communication campaigns promoting vaccination.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of Health specialist, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
•Contributes to literature reviews on malnutrition, obesity, and immunization programs under the guidance of UNICEF’s health specialist, aiming to enhance the organization’s understanding and approach to these critical health issues.
•Assists in designing educational materials and awareness campaigns on nutrition and vaccination, under the supervision of UNICEF’s health officer, ensuring that these materials are aligned with UNICEF’s standards and objectives.
•Assists in the creation of reports and visual materials that communicate the project’s achievements, working under the direction of UNICEF’s health officer to ensure that all communications reflect UNICEF’s mission and impact in the health sector.
•Collaborates in developing strategies to enhance community engagement in immunization efforts, under the mentorship of UNICEF’s health specialist, focusing on identifying and ad-dressing barriers to vaccine access.
•Contribute to the preparation of internal documents for the area (TDR, amendments, bullet points, executive summaries, policy brief) on the issues of immunization and malnutrition.
•Support and participate in the preparation and development of advocacy activities that are carried out to promote dialogues around health and the malnutrition and immunization issues in Peru.
•Participates in technical meetings with state counterparts (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru, Regional Governments).
•Participates in programmatic technical meetings (inter-area and area) to know the progress of the activities carried out in the area.
•Contributes to the preparation of programmatic proposals in Malnutrition and Health.