Infectious Disease Modelling Consultant at World Food Programme

Background: 

Emerging infectious diseases pose an increasing threat to health and economic development in Africa. In the past few years, the international community has moved towards a robust and well-coordinated response approach towards public health emergencies (PHE). Despite this, and other improvements in the increased speed of detection and response, rapid deployment of medical countermeasures and vaccines, the presence of timely access to funding in respect to many PHE remains unpredictable. In the circumstances where funding is secured, it is largely on an ad hoc basis and after occurrence of an event of a given magnitude. Slow and unpredictable funding amplifies both the risk and impact of outbreaks. Any delays in mounting an effective response leads to escalation of outbreak with sustained transmission leading to loss of life, socio-economic disruption of the communities, and negative impact on the nation’s development agenda.

The African Risk Capacity Specialized Agency of the African Union ARC) provides financial tools and infrastructure to help African Union (AU) Member States manage natural disaster risks and improve the way predictable natural disasters are responded to on the continent by reducing the time it takes for assistance to reach those affected through early and local response. ARC achieves this by bringing together three critical elements that create a powerful value proposition for its participants: early warning, contingency planning and sovereign parametric insurance. Together this package provides governments with access to immediate funds for early and planned responses to support vulnerable populations in the event of disasters.

Overview of ARC Outbreaks & Epidemics (O&E) Programme

Following the Ebola crisis that ravaged West Africa, African Ministers of Finance requested the ARC Secretariat in March 2015 to develop a product to address countries’ financing needs to contain outbreaks of viruses and diseases common to the African continent, and in the event of spread or secondary transmission. In the case of Ebola virus disease, financing was only mobilized (depending on the affected country) 4-9 months after the first cases were reported.

The design of this product is based on four distinct but related workstreams: Risk Profiling; Contingency Planning; Disease modeling with trigger definitions; and a Cost-Benefit Analysis of the ARC O&E model. ARC’s O&E programme is designed to address many of the problems inherent in early response for disease outbreaks and epidemics by:

• Establishing a pool of cost-effective capital that can be rapidly deployed;
• Ensuring countries acknowledge O&E by tying declaration of epidemiologic events reported through verifiable sources to immediate financial payouts;
• Facilitating better health systems strengthening and preparedness (e.g. through better surveillance mechanisms and incentivized contingency planning);
• Promoting pan-African and sub-regional solidarity and coordination;
• Linking the African Union’s and its partners’ investments in the strengthening of health systems, country preparedness and the African Centre for Disease Control into a full ecosystem for pandemic risk management on the continent.

Responsibilities

Reporting to the O&E Lead Advisor and working in close collaboration with the broader R&D team, the primary goal of the incumbent would be to build on the epidemic risk models developed by ARC for its outbreaks and epidemics programme and expand on the existing tools for application in all AU member states.

In addition, as part of its Covid-19 response contribution, ARC has developed COVID-19 Potential Outcomes Scenarios to show the potential impact of the current outbreak under a specific set of scenarios and assumptions; and a COVID-19 Spread Simulation Tool for Africa to enable users to simulate different COVID-19 spread scenarios for each African country, and observe the impact of different non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) policies.

The models conceptualization, design, and outputs were subjected to an exclusively assembled ARC O&E Technical Review Committee (TRC), alongside the ARC’ s Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) Members and other external partners.

Specific Tasks

• The Consultant will manage the modelling work of the ARC outbreaks and epidemics programme, working closely with ARC O&E Modelling Agent and in-house modelling and data management teams, to develop and enhance existing ARC modules for infectious diseases;
• Advise the O&E team and AU Member states involved in the O&E programme to develop codes and run stochastic modelling simulations; conduct model sensitivity and robustness analyses, develop disease outbreak scenarios and verification/validation of model outputs, including size and pattern of outbreak/pandemic spread in terms of number of cases and deaths;
• Provide technical advice or mobilise technical expertise, on a wide range of programme and policy issues including assessment and analysis, the choice of objectives, activities, related to ARC’s expansion of modelling of current O&E pathogens and expansion to include new disease pathogens and more countries.
• Develop and manage data collation and analysis, interpret and present results to a high standard to senior management and Countries.
• Advise Senior managers and provide recommendations in expanding on current epidemic risk models developed and the development of a User Interface;
• Take responsibility and coordinate the engagement with ARC’s review and advisory committees and external partners.
• Others.

Deliverables

• Provide an inception report that outlines how the incumbent will lead the O&E modelling work, build on current collaborations and expand on scope and quality of current models;
• Produce a report of support provided to AU Member states to run the O&E epidemic risk models, provide technical support on codes, run stochastic modelling simulations; conduct model sensitivity and robustness analyses;
• Manage or oversee preparation and dissemination of timely analytical and critical reports, publications, and a variety of information products or proposals for internal or external use on the ARC O&E models.
• Review and provide guidance on the User Interface to ensure content meets user expectations and needs;
• Produce reports by collating and analysing data, present results to a high standard using a range of specialised research techniques;
• Coordinate the engagement with ARC’s review and advisory committees, produce quarterly reports, and follow up on ARC’s review and advisory committee’s recommendations.

Academic Background

At a minimum, a master’s degree in one of the following areas: mathematical modelling of infectious diseases epidemiology, public health emergencies, bioinformatics, computational biology, mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science, population biology or a similarly quantitative discipline.

Work Experience and other relevant skills

• Minimum of 6-10 years professional working experience with proficiency required for programming languages such as R and Python, and ability to work in Julia or C/C++, SQL.
• The candidates must have demonstrated experience in outbreak analysis and mathematical model-based forecasting;
• Experience of working with mathematical and statistical models;
• A strong interest in infectious disease epidemiology;
• Ability to analyse large datasets
• Critical thinking and strong communication and presentation skills.
• Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Experience working with African countries, regional or continental African institutions
• Fluency in oral and written English;
• Intermediate knowledge of another AU official language – Arabic, French or Portuguese – highly desirable.

Consultancy duration

This vacancy for an Infectious Disease Modelling Expert is to fulfill a key role within the ARC O&E Team. This Regular Consultancy is envisaged to be conducted for 6 months, with possibility of extension subject to satisfactory performance and budget.