3 Job vacancies at World Health Organization (WHO)

World Health Organization is hiring for the following positions in Rwanda:

1.Public Health Officer – COVID-19 Vaccination, Planning and M&E (SSA)

1. Background and Justification

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the countries’ economies and   social progress in all parts of the world. To respond to this unprecedented pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with other partners is supporting the global efforts to accelerate the development, fair and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX Facility and COVAX Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) established to support low income countries.




With these efforts, three vaccine candidates have completed the phase three of clinical evaluation and have been granted NRAs approvals for emergency use. The vaccines are being used in the USA and some countries of Europe.

Rwanda is among the countries supported by COVAX/AMC, expecting to receive the first shipments of vaccines by the first quarter of 2021. The country is preparing for the introduction and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines by March 2021 and vaccinate 23.6% of the population by the end of 2021.

The introduction of COVID-19 vaccination varies greatly from routine immunization as both the target population (prioritized groups of all ages vs. children) and implementation strategies (large campaigns occurring simultaneously through Rwanda with prioritized groups vs on-going routine immunization) will be different. These unique attributes make the COVID-19 vaccine introduction challenging. In view of these challenges, the Government of Rwanda has indicated the need for additional staff to support coordination and planning for readiness for COVID-19 vaccine deployment.

*Purpose of the Position

The incumbent will provide technical support for the coordination, planning, monitoring and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine introduction readiness and deployment. This includes the technical support for strengthening the coordination of all stakeholders and coordinating committees, providing technical guidance for policy and regulations related to COVID-19 vaccines registration, use and safety, development and adaptation of technical guidelines, SOPs, monitoring and evaluation tools and support the capacity building for the introduction of COVID-19 at national and subnational level.

1. Job Description

Organizational context

Under the overall guidance of WHO Representative for Rwanda, and the direct supervision of the WHO EPI focal point, in collaboration with the Rwanda Biomedical Center/Maternal Child and Community Health (MCCH) division, the incumbent will provide support for coordination, planning and monitoring the implementation of COVID-19 vaccine introduction readiness activities.

Summary of Assigned Duties

The incumbent will perform the following duties:

1. 1. Provide technical support for the coordination of national stakeholders and   COVID-19 vaccine introduction and deployment coordinating committees including SAG, NTWGs, NITAG, ICC and ensure recommendations are timely implemented
   2. Provide technical advice for evidence-based policies for prioritization, compensation mechanisms and regulations related to the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines
   3. Provide technical support for the development or adaptation of guidelines, SOPs monitoring and evaluation tools including data collection and management tools
   4.  Provide technical support for the adaptation of COVID-19 surveillance system including the development/adaptation of surveillance guidelines and data management tools, to generate evidence for vaccine effectiveness and impact evaluation

1. Support to develop protocols regarding consent to vaccinations, process for agreeing or refusing vaccination, and to establish measures to protect those who refuse vaccination.
2. Provide technical support for the adaptation of WHO training materials and support national level training of trainers
3. Support MOH to develop strategy for resources mobilization to support the implementation of National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP)
4. Collaborate with supply chain management and logistic teams to ensure vaccine and ancillaries, and PPEs supplies are available and timely distributed to the districts
5. Perform any other COVID-19 vaccination related activities as requested by the WR, and the immediate supervisor

Recruitment Profile

Competencies

• • Producing results*
  • Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences*
  • Teamwork*
  • Promoting innovation and organizational learning
  • Communication
  • Building and promoting partnerships across the Organization and beyond

Functional Knowledge and Skills

• Technical expertise in public health and epidemiology, planning, national health programme management and coordination of national health program,
• Ability to work effectively with colleagues at national and international levels and to train others.
• Experience within the health system in Rwanda at national and subnational level
•  Proven ability and experience to plan, execute, supervise and manage a large national health programme.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with ability to write in a clear and concise manner and give technical advice and guidance taking into consideration the views of multiple stakeholders and partners in resource-limited contexts;
• Proven ability to promote consensus, communicate progress and results, and resolve issues in a proactive manner, while ensuring effective work practices and ethics.

Education Qualifications

• Essential

University degree in Medicine, Health sciences or related field with specialized training in immunization

• Desirable

Advanced university degree in Public Health or Epidemiology

Experience

• Essential

At least five (5) years of working experience in public health program management including planning, monitoring and evaluation.

• Desirable

Experience in planning, monitoring and evaluation of national immunization program, including the introduction of new vaccines and implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national wide immunization campaigns,

Working experience at operational as well as policy levels of the health system.

Previous experience with WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or a non-governmental organization

1. Use of Language Skills

Excellent knowledge of English or French.




Other Skills

Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.

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2.IT Officer – Immunization e-tracker (SSA)

1. Background and Justification

Rwanda immunization program is among health programs which contribute to reduction of child morbidity and mortality, having in the program 12 antigens administered into routine immunization.

The immunization information system has played a critical role in producing the information that guided strategic interventions to strengthen the immunization system. It is therefore important to have real time information that fulfills the criteria of quality, coverage, and credibility to timely address gaps and challenges.

With the support of partners, the immunization information system recently shifted from paper based to electronic immunization registry in the framework to enable the system to produce real time and high-quality data to support evidence for decision making towards improving the program performance and management. An immunization e-tracker software was established into DHIS2 and deployed in all health centers. Key users were trained and computers (desktop) were distributed to support data management

Since September 2019, the immunization e-tracker has been deployed in all health center and data are being uploaded into the system. However, day to day management of the system and addressing the users’ concerns have been challenging, highlighting the need permanent IT support to perform all the real-time trouble shooting   to improve the functionality of the system and ensure the continuous capacity building of the end users.

*Purpose of the Position

The incumbent will provide technical support for the day to day monitoring of the functionality of immunization e-tracker, provide necessary support for the improvement of the system at all level of health information system as required and support health facilities to improve data collection and reporting into the system.

1. Job Description

*Organizational context

Under the overall guidance of WHO Representative Rwanda, and the direct supervision of the WHO EPI focal point, in collaboration with the Maternal Child and Community Health (MCCH) division the IT will provide support for immunization data management, ensuring the e-tracker is fully functional and end users are regularly updated on the functionality of the system. The IT officer will be seconded to the MOH/HIMS program and will work closely with vaccine preventable diseases program unit. The incumbent will remotely provide support to all health centers as required but also conduct field visit to assist with data quality checks if necessary.

 

*Summary of Assigned Duties

The incumbent should ensure quality is maintained all throughout the delivery of the system, particularly in:

1.Requirements gathering;

2.Hardware deployment, hosting, and networking set-up;

3.System/ data workflow management;

4.Authorization workflow handling, to ensure it is handled in accordance with the pre-defined hierarchy within.

5.Ensure the full maintenance of the system

6.Develop reporting functionality, controls and validation and dashboard in vaccination tracker;

7.Provide technical support, troubleshoot and resolve issues, develops and maintain up to date documentation, and work to escalate issues as per processes setup;

8.Review of data integrity: provide assurance that the database design and structure provide the best possible design for the organizational needs and corresponding application and future integration needs.

9.Built capacity of the RBC/EPI staff and district hospital EPI data managers and supervisors.

1. Recruitment Profile

 

Competencies: Generic

 

Describe the core, management or leadership competencies required

(See WHO competency model – list in order of priority, commencing with the most important ones.)

 

• • Producing results*
  • Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences*
  • Teamwork*
  • Promoting innovation and organizational learning
  • Communication
  • Building and promoting partnerships across the Organization and beyond

Functional Knowledge and Skills

• Excellent communication and presentation skills with ability to write in a clear and concise manner and give technical advice and guidance taking into consideration the views of multiple stakeholders and partners in resource-limited contexts;
• Proven ability to promote consensus, communicate progress and results, and resolve issues in a proactive manner, while ensuring effective work practices and ethics.

*Describe the essential knowledge and the skills specific to the position

Education Qualifications

Secondary School, Technical or Commercial School in Information Technology, Computer Science or similar with additional professional trainings/specialization in DHIS-2 and good knowledge of health information system

Experience

Essential

At least 10 to 15 years of working experience; in undertaking in DHIS2 customization and management and proven experience in DHIS2 implementation and virtualization platforms, software change management, user acceptance testing and end user training.

Desirable

Extensive working experience in Health information management system and DHIS2 implementation at National and subnational level.

Previous experience with WHO, other UN agencies, immunization teams and health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or a non-governmental organization is desirable.

1. Use of Language Skills

Excellent knowledge of English or French.

Other Skills (e.g. IT)

Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.




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3.Public Health Officer – COVID-19 Vaccine, Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) Surveillance (SSA) – (2100742)

1. Background and Justification

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the countries’ economies and   social progress in all parts of the world. To respond to this unprecedented pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with other partners is supporting the global efforts to accelerate the development, fair and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX Facility and COVAX Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) established to support low income countries.

With these efforts, three vaccine candidates have completed the phase three clinical of evaluation and have been granted NRAs approvals for emergency use. The vaccines are being used in the USA and some countries of Europe.

Rwanda is among the countries supported by COVAX/AMC, expecting to receive the first shipments of vaccines by the first quarter of 2021 and vaccinate 23.6% of the population by the end of 2021, and is preparing for the introduction by April 2021

The introduction of COVID-19 vaccination varies greatly from routine immunization as both the target population (prioritized groups of all ages vs. children) and implementation strategies (large campaigns occurring simultaneously through Rwanda with prioritized groups vs on-going routine immunization) will be different. In addition, the deployment and administration may involve more vaccines with different presentations, from different manufacturers, and use of new technologies never licensed, against a novel pathogen with many unknowns. This highlights the complexity of COVID-19 vaccines safety monitoring requiring the establishment of a robust Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) surveillance system with capacities to timely respond to COVID-19 vaccine AEFIs cases.

It is in this context that the Government of Rwanda has expressed the need for additional staff to support planning for strengthening the routine AEFIs surveillance system to ensure COVID-19 vaccine related AEFIs and adverse events of special interest (AESI) will be timely detected, investigated and analyzed for appropriate response to minimize the negative impact of these events on the immunization program and maintain the public confidence

*Purpose of the Position

The incumbent will provide technical support for planning and monitoring AEFI surveillance systems for the management of increased frequency or severity of AEFIs (mild, moderate and severe). This includes enhancing capacity of the existing AEFI surveillance system for timely reporting, investigation and response to COVID-19 vaccine related AEFIs or AESIs.

1. Job Description

Organizational context

Under the overall guidance of WHO Representative Rwanda, and the direct supervision of the WHO EPI focal point, in collaboration with the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC)/ Maternal Child and Community Health(MCCH) division and Rwanda Food and Drug Authority (RFDA)/ Pharmacovigilance and safety monitoring division, the incumbent will provide support to strengthen the capacity of the existing AEFI surveillance system for appropriate response to COVID-19 vaccines AEFIs or AESIs




Summary of Assigned Duties

The incumbent will perform the following duties

1. Provide technical support for the assessment of the existing AEFI surveillance system to identify gaps and develop a plan of activities to address the challenges
2. Provide technical support for the development/adaptation of pharmacovigilance   guidelines, SOPs and tools for planning and conducting vaccine pharmacovigilance activities
3. Support capacity building of national and subnational health professional on AEFI and AESI surveillance, investigation and response
4. Organize training of the AEFI committee for the review COVID-19 vaccines safety data
5. Support to define roles and responsibilities and establish a coordination mechanism between relevant stakeholders for exchange of COVID-19 Vaccine safety information, define and secure channels of data sharing mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccine safety data and findings with relevant regional and international partners.
6. Provide technical guidance and advice for establishing compensation schemes in case of unintended health consequences as result of vaccines, including no-fault liability funds.
7. Provide technical support for the development of AEFI crisis management plan and risk communication
8. Liaise with the communication experts to ensure vaccine safety issues are taken into consideration in communication planning and key messages are prepared for the management of misinformation surrounding COVID-19 vaccine
9. Liaise with communication experts to assist in the training of focal points for vaccine safety at sub-national level on how to identify and respond to vaccine safety issues on social media
10. Perform any other COVID-19 vaccination related activities as requested by the WR, and the immediate supervisor
11. Recruitment Profile

Competencies

 

• • Producing results
  • Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences*
  • Teamwork
  • Promoting innovation and organizational learning
  • Communication
  • Building and promoting partnerships across the Organization and beyond

Functional Knowledge and Skills

• Technical expertise in planning, monitoring and evaluation of health program,
• Ability to work effectively with colleagues at sub-national, national and international levels
• Experience within the health system in Rwanda at national and subnational level
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with ability to write in a clear and concise manner
• Proven ability to promote consensus, communicate progress and results, and resolve issues in a proactive manner, while ensuring effective work practices and ethics.

Education Qualifications

• Essential

University degree in Medicine, Health sciences or related field

Desirable

Advanced university degree in Public Health or Epidemiology

Experience

• Essential

At least five (5) years of working experience in public health surveillance, pharmacovigilance and/or implementation of clinical trials.

• Desirable

Working experience in routine immunization program implementation, AEFIs surveillance and response.

Previous experience with WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or a non-governmental organization.

Use of Language Skills

Excellent knowledge of English or French.

Other Skills

Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.

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