Field Epidemiologist/Public Health Officer - NOA (Multiple duty station)

The Field Epidemiologist/Public Health Officer will provide field epidemiology and public health support for preparedness, readiness, and response to Bundibugyo Virus Disease and other priority public health emergencies in high-risk counties of South Sudan. The role involves strengthening surveillance, alert management, investigation, contact-tracing readiness, risk assessment, and translating epidemiological information into timely operational action.

Responsibilities

• Support the establishment and functioning of county-level surveillance, alert management, and event-based surveillance arrangements for Bundibugyo Virus Disease and other priority health threats.
• Ensure that health facilities, points of entry, community networks, hotlines, and partners use the approved case definitions, alert criteria, notification channels, and reporting tools.
• Receive, screen, verify, classify, and document alerts and ensure that high-risk alerts are immediately escalated for investigation, isolation, sampling, referral, and other required actions.
• Lead or support rapid epidemiological investigations of suspected cases, clusters, unexplained deaths, and other unusual public health events, including preparation of investigation reports and recommendations.
• Strengthen indicator-based surveillance, including completeness, timeliness, zero reporting, and data-quality review from priority health facilities and surveillance sites.
• Establish and maintain county alert line lists, case investigation databases, laboratory tracking lists, contact-tracing preparedness records, and other analysis-ready datasets.
• Support the design, training, and operational readiness of contact-tracing teams, including identification of supervisors, development of rosters, mapping of coverage areas, and testing of reporting arrangements.
• When activated, support contact listing, risk classification, daily follow-up, data review, escalation of symptomatic contacts, and monitoring of contact-tracing performance.
• Conduct routine descriptive analysis by person, place, and time and produce epidemic curves, spot maps, trend summaries, and other decision-support products.
• Contribute to rapid risk assessments, hotspot identification, corridor analysis, and prioritization of surveillance, readiness, and response activities.
• Prepare concise daily and weekly epidemiological updates, alert summaries, situation-report inputs, and briefing notes for county, state, and national coordination structures.
• Provide epidemiological input to county incident action plans, operational meetings, simulation exercises, after-action reviews, and readiness monitoring.
• Work with IPC/WASH, RCCE, laboratory, case management, points of entry, and logistics teams to ensure that surveillance findings trigger coordinated operational action.
• Support cross-border and cross-county surveillance information exchange, including follow-up of alerts and population movements along high-risk corridors.
• Train and mentor surveillance officers, health workers, rapid response teams, community-based surveillance personnel and partner staff on case detection, notification, investigation, data management, and basic analysis.
• Monitor availability and correct use of surveillance tools, investigation forms, contact-tracing materials, communication devices, and reporting platforms, and report gaps for corrective action.
• Ensure confidentiality, secure handling, and appropriate sharing of personal and public health information in line with WHO policies and national requirements.
• Identify operational bottlenecks and recommend practical corrective actions to improve timeliness, quality and coverage of surveillance and response.
• Maintain readiness for immediate deployment within the assigned county or neighboring priority locations when a suspected or confirmed case is reported.
• Perform other incident-specific public health duties assigned by the supervisor.

Requirements

• First university degree in epidemiology, public health, medicine, nursing, environmental health, health sciences, or another relevant discipline from a recognized institution.
• Advanced university degree or postgraduate training in field epidemiology, public health, infectious disease epidemiology, outbreak investigation, surveillance or emergency response is desirable.
• Completion of a Field Epidemiology Training Programme or equivalent training is an asset.
• At least two years of relevant professional experience in public health surveillance, epidemiology, outbreak investigation, emergency response, or communicable disease control.
• Practical experience in alert verification, case investigation, line listing, data analysis, and production of epidemiological reports.
• Experience working with health authorities, health facilities, communities, and partners at the state or county level.
• Experience using routine surveillance data to identify gaps and recommend operational actions.
• Experience with WHO, a Ministry of Health, a national public health institute, UN agencies, or humanitarian organizations is desirable.
• Experience in South Sudan or another fragile, conflict-affected or access-constrained setting is desirable.
• Experience supporting viral haemorrhagic fever preparedness or response, contact tracing, cross-border surveillance or point-of-entry monitoring is desirable.
• Experience with IDSR, EWARS, DHIS2, mobile data-collection tools, GIS or dashboard platforms is desirable.
• Experience in training and mentoring surveillance officers, health workers, rapid response teams, or community-based surveillance personnel is desirable.
• Strong knowledge of disease surveillance, event-based surveillance, outbreak investigation, contact tracing, and basic emergency risk assessment.
• Ability to analyse and interpret incomplete or rapidly changing epidemiological information and translate findings into practical recommendations.
• Ability to prepare clear line lists, charts, maps, summaries, and operational reports under short timelines.
• Strong planning, coordination, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to work independently in field locations while maintaining effective technical supervision and reporting lines.
• Ability to work respectfully with national authorities, communities, partners, and multidisciplinary emergency teams.
• Sound judgement, confidentiality, and ability to work under pressure in a changing environment.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office applications, especially Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
• Practical experience with electronic data collection, line-list management, and routine data-quality checks.
• Experience with DHIS2, EWARS, GIS software, KoboToolbox, Open Data Kit, Power BI, or similar platforms is desirable.
• Basic knowledge of statistical software such as Epi Info, R, Stata, SPSS, or equivalent is an asset.
• Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English and good working knowledge of Arabic will be an asset.
• Working knowledge of Arabic and relevant local languages used in the assigned duty station is an asset.

Skills

• Field Epidemiology
• Public Health Surveillance
• Outbreak Investigation
• Emergency Response
• Communicable Disease Control
• Alert Verification
• Case Investigation
• Line Listing
• Data Analysis
• Epidemiological Reporting
• Health Coordination
• Routine Surveillance Data Analysis
• Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Preparedness
• Contact Tracing
• Cross Border Surveillance
• Point-of-Entry Monitoring
• Training and Mentoring
• Event-based Surveillance
• Emergency Risk Assessment
• MS Excel
• MS Word
• MS PowerPoint
• Microsoft Outlook
• Electronic Data Collection
• Data Quality Checks
• DHIS2 Knowledge
• EWARS
• GIS Software
• KoboToolbox
• Open Data Kit
• Power BI
• EpiInfo
• STATA
• SPSS

Languages

English, Arabic