Public Health Consultant: Epidemic Risks and AU CDC Liaison at World Food Programme

Background: 

Africa CDC and African Risk Capacity (ARC) are agencies of African Union with specific and overlapping in the areas of mandates in disaster risk reduction and in public health. To further the common objective of supporting Member states, the two agencies signed as MOU to establish a framework for collaboration to cooperate on implementing an expansion of Epidemic risk profiling (EPI) tool developed by ARC in the O&E pilot to cover a much broader scope of variables in collaboration with CDC Hubs, National Public Health Institutes, and academia. The goal of the collaboration is to deliver a continental Epidemic Risk Index and also a web based epidemic risk assessment tool for AU member states.

Most public health emergencies in Africa can be anticipated through thorough risk assessments and disease profiling for evidence to inform preventive programmes, guide the designing of mitigation measures, inform Member States on where investment in preparedness are most needed, and support timely response for effective recovery from such events. Mapping the risk and its quantification and the distribution of epidemics in the continent will provide a greater understanding of disease-specific epidemiological risks through identification of potential hazards, vulnerable populations, and coping mechanisms and capacities at both national and sub-national levels. The initiative intends to complement other existing initiatives by partner institutions such as WHO.

Goal: The goal of this initiative is to assist the Members States of the African Union to strengthen their capacity to assess, quantify, analyze health risks and incorporate the results of this analysis for risk reduction and mitigation, prioritize investment in emergency preparedness and response plans, and assist on effective recovery from public health events.

Specific Objectives:

• Expand the ARC risk profiling tool to capture more pathogens (such as Coronaviruses), conduct disease profiles and vulnerability assessments to inform prevention and preparedness plans for AU Member States;
• Develop an Africa Epidemic Risk Index that measures the preparedness level of all AU member states with clear indices.
• Create an open-source epidemic modeling interface for Member States to continually assess epidemic risk and project potential effects and impact of infectious diseases outbreaks;
• Test and validate the tools through the national public health institutes in selected number Member States;
• Support the Member States through the Regional Collaborating Centres in the application of the tool.

Rationale and Scope of the consultancy Work: The overall aim of this work by the Africa CDC and African Risk Capacity is to produce national and subnational pathogen-specific epidemic preparedness profiles to inform on country preparedness and response capacity and serve as a component of the ARC capacity building for outbreaks and epidemics insurance coverage. In this scope of work, the consultant will develop from an existing ARC epidemic preparedness tool, developed during the pilot phase of the O&E product to an expanded tool that encompasses additional pathogens and domains.

In addition to the existing four O&E pathogens (Ebola, Marburg, Meningitis and Lassa Fever), the consultant will work closely with Africa CDC, ARC staff and country experts to add new pathogens in the risk assessment framework. This will also include, but not limited to review of other tools available such as JEE, IHR Assessments, Vulnerability and Risk Analysis and Mapping (VRAM), and Threat and Hazard Identification and risk Assessment (THIRA), and any other related assessments.

The additional domains to the existing ARC framework may include and not limited to (1) impact, (2) vulnerability, and (3) outbreak costs.

Scope of work:

1. Produce an inception report and plan of work by reviewing the scope of work, the risk profiling tool developed by ARC and conduct analysis for additional pathogens and risk domains;
2. Conduct a desk review on available data sources such as WHO, UNFPA, WB, UNICEF, and UNDP, UNHCR and published full text reports and other documents from a selected number of Member States to identify usable information and sources to avoid repeated data collection. Through this, the consultant will also identify variables that needs data collection visits to countries;
3. Conduct an analysis using other reports such as the WHO’s A Heavy Burden: The Productivity Cost of Illness in Africa[1], World Bank reports on burden of diseases to assess and prioritize utilizable indicators and parameters in assessment of burden of disease for the prioritized pathogens in the different contexts
4. Develop and finalise an expanded risk profiling system, consistent with acceptable global methodologies and practices that will include data collecting tool(s), templates for creation of risk/preparedness visuals, verifiable risk/preparedness indices at national and subnational levels, and propose the most efficient data collection and parameter (and indicator) weighting methodologies
5. Develop a national and subnational data collecting risk profiling report for selected countries. This will involve but not limited to:

• Develop; the national and subnational data analysis plan, data model and visualization interfaces of the processed data (through dashboards, maps, Charts or tables that detail critical or threshold points needing urgent intervention);
• Draft the risk/preparedness profiling guidelines and templates for all the prioritized pathogens;
• Africa CDC HQs and Africa CDC Regional Hubs to lead in the subsequent national and subnational level risk profiling data collection, and the consultant may be asked to provide quality assurance during the implementation of the exercise.
• Translation of the risk profiles into national and subnational preparedness/risk indices;
• Guide Africa CDC to publish and guide the most effective way of dissemination of the risk profile reports on the Africa CDC Website and other distribution platforms.
• Recommendations for a methodology to create a national and subnational (admin-1 and admin-2) preparedness/risk composite and the individual prioritized pathogen indices.

Consultancy deliverables:

• Inception report detailing the approach to the described scope of work,
• Draft expanded data collecting tool taking into consideration the additional prioritized pathogens and domains
• Facilitation of a consensus meeting of regional and global experts to review and make recommendations on the;
• Overall construction and applicability of the data collecting tool in the various contexts, and for the uses it is intended for, 
• parameter/indicator and selection, and their utility in the assessment of epidemic preparedness and response cycle
• sampling framework for subnational level (admin-1 and admin-2) in all the different Member States
• additional domains including impact, vulnerability, and costing of outbreak responses
• in-country primary data collection and secondary data abstraction
• Revised data collecting tool incorporating the feedback and recommendations of the expert panel
• Final report

Academic Qualifications

• Advanced University degree in Medicine, Public Health, Veterinary, Social Science, Environmental Health, Laboratory Science, Anthropology, sociology or other clearly related disciplines.
• Master’s Degree in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology or related fields
• PhD in the related field is an added advantage

Work Experience and other relevant skills

• Minimum of 7-10 years professional working experience in designing and implementation of infectious disease prevention and control programme, health research and outbreak control interventions.
• Demonstrated ability in conducting epidemic disease forecasting, risk assessment, complex research design, data collection oversight and quality control, advanced data analysis, scientific report writing and publications
• Excellent analytical and communication skills

Languages

• Fluency in oral and written English;
• Intermediate knowledge of another AU official language – Arabic, French or Portuguese – highly desirable.

Consultancy duration: This work is envisaged to be conducted in (6) months.

Deadline for applications: 30 July 2020

Ref.: VA No. 123376