Technical Officer

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Description

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The mission of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) is to build the capacity of Member States to manage health emergency risks and, when national capacities are overwhelmed, to lead and coordinate the international health response to contain outbreaks and to provide effective relief and recovery to affected populations.

WHE brings together and enhances WHO’s operational, technical and normative capacities in outbreaks, emergencies and risk analysis to address all health hazards across the risk management cycle in a predictable, capable, dependable, adaptable and accountable manner.  WHE is designed to operate within the broader humanitarian and emergency management architecture in support of people at risk of, or affected by, outbreaks and emergencies, consistent with ways that strengthen local and national capabilities.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

The incumbent will perform all, or part of the following, and other related responsibilities as required by the needs of the office:

• Provide advice to national public health authorities and manage the epidemiological work of the country office that underpins policy formulation. Support to relevant teams on building core capacities for surveillance, early detection, verification and rapid response to epidemics and other public health events of international concern, as required in the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 and guided by the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework.
• Assist the government on the enhancement of national capacities in epidemic and disease-trends, early detection systems, and epidemiology and laboratory surveillance and for monitoring and evaluating the core surveillance and real-time analysis of outbreak intelligence data.
• Coordinate the development of training courses for public health professionals on epidemiological surveillance, outbreak investigation, and/or the improvement of related data management.
• Support the government in conducting field investigations of public health events. when required by the specific country or health situation.
• Participate, in risk assessments for unusual health events.
• Support the analysis of data sets to provide the epidemiological situation for specific diseases and/or during acute public health events.
• Collaborate with relevant authorities on the development and maintenance of a national system for comprehensive data collection and trend analysis of public health events.
•  Serve as focal person for all internal and external requests related to country-specific data on specific diseases and during acute public heath events.
• Encourage collaboration and develop advocacy initiatives and project proposals for joint action and resource mobilization to augment national, operational responses to public health events. 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Essential: A bachelor’s degree in epidemiology, or public health, or medicine
• Desirable: Advanced university degree (master’s level or higher) related to epidemiology or post-graduate training in epidemiology (Field Epidemiology Training Programme)

Experience

• Essential: Minimum of five years’ relevant work experience, with proven international exposure, in epidemiology including implementing programmes, policies, and guidelines as well as monitoring and evaluation of diseases and public health issues. 

Desirable:

• Relevant experience in a developing country context is desirable. 
• Experience in WHO or within the UN system with an understanding of its mandate, goals, and procedures.

Skills

• Demonstrated knowledge and professional skills in the development and implementation of public health surveillance systems.
• Experience in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of epidemiological and event-based surveillance data.
• Strong ability to process, analyse and interpret epidemiological and event-based surveillance data.  
• Expertise in providing technical support/guidance for a rapid, public-health response to public-health events. ‘
• Experience in data analysis and interpretation related to epidemics/pandemics.
• Knowledge of the communicable and non-communicable disease profile of the country.    
• Demonstrated training skills (developing and conducting training).
• Ability to lead and coordinate multidisciplinary teams, projects and programmes.
• Demonstrated skills to develop public-health guidelines.

Source: https://careers.who.int/careersection/ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=2403461&tz=GMT%2B05%3A30&tzname=Asia%2FCalcutta

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