Epidemiologist at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)

Main Purpose

Implementing and supervising the epidemiological and operations research in the mission according to MSF protocols, standards and procedures in order to contribute to mitigating the effects of diseases where MSF is present. Assessing, implementing and maintaining the epidemiological surveillance systems/monitoring according to MSF protocols, standards and procedures.

Accountabilities:

• Where relevant, participating in defining the objectives of socio-epidemiological and operational research, developing research protocols and methodology including inclusion criteria for participation, sampling and recruitment and data management processes, and identifying the human resources needed to conduct the research to obtain relevant information for the medical or humanitarian intervention. Where relevant, ensuring compliance with MSF laboratory protocols.
• Coordinating the execution of the research with partners ensuring compliance to MSF protocols.  
• Providing training to and supervising the team that will participate in performing the research. Providing training sessions to medical and non-medical teams on relevant aspects of epidemiology to enhance team response capacity. 
• Ensuring individuals and communities included in any research have freely given their consent to participate and have received the correct information in a format they can comprehend.  
• Reviewing data collection, implementing quality assurance on data processing at research-sites level, and undertaking statistical analysis as appropriate, reporting on a regular basis to the functional referent about study progress and any relevant information for the mission/project.  
• Writing clear research reports documenting the full methods and results and drawing appropriate conclusions supported by the results. Where appropriate, participating in writing scientific papers.  
• Ensuring dissemination of findings to the community and authorities as described in the study protocol. 
• Implementing and maintaining a surveillance system to monitor epidemiological trends of relevant outbreak-prone diseases. Guiding activities of medical staff for surveillance and/or active case finding, including ensuring understanding of the need for consistent case definitions and data recording. 
• Monitoring and implementing initial assessment (for emergency), rapid health assessments and (baseline or follow-up) surveys.
• Managing data systems and ensuring accurate, high-quality databases; analysing results and preparing regular written reports on progress and findings for medical coordinator/headquarters and when appropriate to external collaborators/networks (MoH, other NGOs, etc.) 
• Operational reserch and surveys:Submission of approved protocols to relevant Ethics review comittees (KEMRI, AMREF), National commision for science, technology and innovation (NACOSTI) and lead study implementation, analysis and scientific communication. 
• Identification of alerts and alert  investigation: Perform scanning and epidemic intelligence activities to identify alerts of outbreak-prone diseases and investifgate specific alerts at National level and nine  counties under MSF OCG EPREP response. 
• Outbreak investigation and monitoring: Perform outbreak investigations as guided by MSF protocol, investigate cases, implement line-lists for respective outbreak diaseses. Map and visualise distribution of cases. Participate to assessment of the risk of disease transmission and other health threats among target population during outbreak interventions in MSF OCG projects and other counties of OCG EPREP response.  
• Data Collection, analysis and quality assurance: Support the regular projects and emergency intervention in reviewing existing data collection tools and data systems in place including case investigation forms for outbreaks, data reporting forms for routine collected data, patients linelists. Conduct quarterly and ad hoc DQA between DHIS2 and SITREP data to asure accurate and reliable data. Perform data cleaning and analyse outbreak data and survey data from the projects. 
• Monitoring of regional health indicators and foresight analysis: Analyze seasonality, trends and future predictions of notifiable diseases of public health importance including climate changes that impact on health within East African region. In collaboration with Medical Coordinator, incorporate anticipated scenarios in OCG and intersectional emergency preparedness plan. 

Requirements

Education

• Degree in Medical, Para-medical, or Biomedical with specialization in Epidemiology or Public Health, master’s degree (desirable). 

Experience

• At least 3 years of experience in field epidemiology with medical or public health organization.  
• At least 3 years of research experience. 

Languages

• English, Swahili and Somali  

Knowledge

• Use of epidemiology related analytical software (STATA, SPSS and or R) 
• Database management, data quality control/assurance, statistical analysis, secondary data review, operational research/survey designing and implementation, monitoring and evaluation of logical frameworks. 
• Conversant with public health information management systems. 
• Knowledge of DHIS2, QGIS, Osmand, PowerBI, KoboCollect, ODK, RedCap, reference manager software (Zotero, Mendeley, etc.) 

Competencies

• Results  Quality Orientation L2 
• Teamwork  Cooperation L2 
• Behavioural Flexibility L2 
• Commitment to MSF Principles L2  
• Stress Management L3