Mission

Assessing, implementing and maintaining the epidemiological surveillance systems/monitoring (if needed) according to MSF protocols, standards and procedures in order to contribute to appropriate evidence-based decision making using well managed health data in outbreak and emergency MSF programmes.

Main responsabilites

• Carrying out key epidemiological activities in outbreak investigation (description including time, place, people with emphasis on mapping when it is needed in collaboration with the GIS team) and advising on the operational response
• Implementing and maintaining a surveillance system to monitor epidemiological trends of relevant outbreak-prone diseases, working with health promotion and community engagement team as relevant. 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 (briefing of all new staff)
• Monitoring and Implementing initial assessment (for emergency situation), rapid health assessments and (baseline or follow-up) surveys. Where standard protocols are not available or appropriate, developing a protocol seeking extensive feedback and pilot testing of tools to ensure the objectives will be met robustly with support of HQ epidemiologist
• Planning and supervising the associated HR processes of the staff under his/her responsibility (recruitment, training/induction, evaluation, potential detection, development and communication) and ensuring that staff exhibits required skills after training and pilot test
• Supervise data encoding procedures, ensuring with the medical team that the data collection circuit is appropriate and epidemiology software tools are accurate and timely, analysing results and preparing regular written reports on progress and findings.
• Providing training sessions to medical teams on relevant aspects of epidemiology to enhance team response capacity
• Advising the MSF medical team on epidemiological matters that arise in the course of their activity research, and when necessary, designing and implementing epidemiological tools and data collection to meet new epidemiological needs.
• Work in tandem with other MSF sections present to ensure the harmonization of tools as relevant.
• Participating in operational monthly reports and organizing and/or assisting medical staff in preparing epidemiological reports related to health facilities and to researched areas
• Document lessons learned and capitalize on experiences, including handover, end of mission and capitalization reports
• Ensure regular collaboration with other supervisors / managers (HP, GIS, Medical activity managers, Logistics, Supply, Water and Sanitation, Admin).