Health Emergency Officer, Immunization Data Management_Band B at World Health Organization

 Area of expertise

Health Emergency Officer, Immunization Data Management_Band B, Nairobi.

Purpose of consultancy

WHO has a strong mandate to work with Member States on immunization and the response to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Detecting, preventing and responding to these outbreaks are part of the core capacities required by the IHR (2005), and key to achieving global health security.
The purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical support to immunization interventions during new and ongoing emergencies, including. The incumbent will be tasked with data management and analysis. The position aims to assist vaccination efforts by delivering timely, accurate, and actionable information to facilitate decision-making, planning, and monitoring throughout the entire vaccination process. This ensures the efficient deployment of vaccines and offers the necessary protection to targeted populations during outbreaks and humanitarian emergencies. The incumbent will support risk assessments to determine the rationale for vaccination; review of vaccine options based on contextual considerations and available data. The incumbent undertakes coordinated, transparent and collaborative assessment, planning and implementation of vaccination response approaches for WHO to engage as a trusted partner in outbreaks and health emergencies, providing unique and valued capacities.

Background 

The mission of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme (The Programme) is to build the capacity of Member States to manage health emergencies 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. The EPR Cluster is responsible for identifying gaps and strengthening national capacities in preparedness and response to respond effectively to emergencies while ensuring resilience of health systems during these emergencies.

Deliverables

Under the direct supervision of EMR team lead at the hub, with technical oversight of the emergencies immunization officer in AFRO, the incumbent is responsible for, but not necessarily limited to the following assigned duties:

•  The incumbent will be responsible for overseeing the management of any VPD outbreak data within the region. Working closely with the Health Information and Reporting (HIR) team and the Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD) data team, the individual will coordinate and harmonize vaccination data sources and system.
• Liaise with the WHE detection, verification and risk assessment team to conduct and strengthen event-based surveillance for VPD outbreaks and verify signals, working with relevant technical programmes at the regional office and headquarters.
• Enhance and support data collection to integrate diverse datasets, such as demographic, health, and geographic information. This provides a comprehensive view of the situation, supporting better decision-making, coordination, and response to outbreaks and emergencies.
• Develop a monitoring framework for VPD (related to emergencies) and Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) and case-based surveillance data to enable in-depth analytics for preparedness, response, and vaccination.
• Create spatial models for disease surveillance and early warning systems to guide vaccination efforts during emergencies.
• Develop dashboards and maps to offer a spatial overview of vaccination campaign progress, enabling decision-makers to identify gaps and areas requiring additional attention.
• Design and implementing approaches to clean data, incorporating completeness, internal consistency, and logic checks. Automating the generation of data quality reports and ensuring systematic follow-up on data irregularities.
• Collect, manage, summarise, analyse and present administrative and individual COVID-19 data and other relevant VPD from emergencies from member states.
• Transform data into narrative text, tables, maps, and graphics for partner and stakeholder review, informing recommendations for strategic planning and decision-making.
• Maintain the Regional COVID-19 vaccine database for both aggregated and individual data.
• Support the development of an interactive dashboard for COVID-19 vaccination data and other VPDs in emergencies, including information on adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) and vaccine deployment and management.
• Contribute to the development of periodic Covid-19 bulletins and other information products.
• In collaboration with the Emergencies Immunization officer, coordinate WHO support for vaccination in emergency context by ensuring regional coordination and guide decision making on vaccination interventions immediately after the onset or during planning in anticipation of a likely acute emergency.
• Determine the considerations that need to be taken into account when implementing vaccination in the context of a humanitarian emergency including assessment of resources needed to implement vaccination interventions.
• Support effective management and delivery of vaccination services, including coordination, planning, and vaccine forecasting and management.
• Identify the suitable vaccination delivery strategies in different types of emergencies to increase access to the most vulnerable populations and maintain equitable access to vaccinations.
• Provide expert advice on methods for the collection and analysis of coverage data and information on vaccination interventions in emergencies. Ensure timely reporting and data sharing in emergency situations.
• Provide guidance on strategies to sustain and improve routine vaccination coverage during a protracted/chronic emergency, as well as efforts towards early recovery of vaccination service delivery to restore equitable access to vaccinations.
• Perform any other incident-specific related duties, as required by the functional supervisor.
• Weekly briefs on the vaccination response for ongoing incidents (e.g., diphtheria, COVID-19).
• Representation of the vaccines pillar at the weekly event coordination meetings.
• Contribute to development of tools and technical guidance documents on vaccination response and strategies to ongoing vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.
• Perform quality control checks on the developed Dashboard on COVID-19 vaccination country profiles prior to its deployment.
• Capacity to maintain and update the dashboard on COVID-19 vaccination and other VPDs in emergencies within the WHO AFRO team. 
• Training materials developed on VPDs in emergencies data management. 

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications

Essential

A university degree in Surveying and Geoinformatics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Statistics, Monitoring & Evaluation or Data Management related field with additional data management training or related field from an accredited/recognised institute.

Desirable

• Specialized training in field epidemiology.
• Specialized training in emergency/humanitarian response.

Experience

Essential

• At least 5 years of related experience in health related data management and using spatial design and analyses to elucidate gaps in program performance at International level.
• Experience in quality collection, analysis, dissemination, and use of health information for program planning and management.
• Experience in database development. Working knowledge of statistical application programs (EPI INFO, SPSS, STATA etc.), mapping programs (ArcGIS, QGIS etc) and visualization programs like Tableau and Power BI

Desirable

Previous related work experience in the UN or other International Development Agencies Training on data Management, GIS and data visualization. 

Skills/Knowledge

• Basic knowledge of ICT, programming, mobile, GIS and web based data technology.
• Ability to acquire sound knowledge of WHO rules, regulations and procedures. Demonstrated abilities for team-work.
• Ability to establish and maintain good relations with people at various levels and of different background.

Languages and level required 

• Expert knowledge of English or French with working level of the other language.
• Working knowledge of another WHO official language would be an asset.