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Founded in 1946, UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child in 190 countries and territories, with a special focus on reaching those in greatest need. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for poor countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from v...
Background and Justification
Immunization program in South Africa while providing a comprehensive package of antigens to all its citizens through routine primary health care services, the coverage rates among children are far from satisfactory level of achieving 90 percent coverage of all antigens recommended by WHO. The third dose of Diphtheria containing vaccine reached less than 80 percent of children under one year in South Africa during the last 5 years according to the WHO UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage, 2019.
UNICEF South Africa has prioritized district health systems strengthening in the current country program 2020-2025 including the immunization program in close coordination with the Department of Health and development With the technical assistance of UNICEF and WHO, the National Department of Health has identified low performing districts especially metropolitan municipalities as priority district to focus on in 2019/20 to close the immunization gap and improve immunization service delivery.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on the provision of routine mother, new-born, and child health across South Africa. The pandemic has disrupted the utilization of primary health care services including the routine immunization services, especially during the stricter lockdowns period. The District Health Information Systems (DHIS) shows that many districts experienced a decline in coverage between the data for April –July 2019 compared to the same period in 2020. This could worsen the already existed immunity coverage gaps in South Africa as EPI coverage declined in many districts before the COVID-19 pandemic. It is against this background that the Department of Health is supporting the implementation and monitoring of catch up drives to vaccinate children who missed eligible doses during the lockdown restrictions as well as those who did not complete the full dose of immunization schedule.
UNICEF’s Health and Nutrition programme contributes to national efforts to ensure every child is fully immunized. This includes supporting Government with the development, implementation, monitoring and of the EPI turnaround strategy; coverage and equity analysis, reviews, planning and implementation and the planning immunization catch up plans and drive.
The catch-up drives require more intensive efforts and support to the low performing districts where the pandemic continues to take up significant time of all staff, a key gap remains the human resources to ensure timely implementation of catch up drives. In this regard, UNICEF is seeking a national consultant to work as an Immunization consultant to support the implementation of quality catch up drives, strengthen the EPI programme and overall child health and nutrition programme.
The consultancy will also help close the gap in the SACO team when the health specialist leaves on 31 December 2020. The consultancy is expected to strengthen UNICEF support in planning, implementation and monitoring of immunization/child health programme, district health systems strengthening. Moreover, the support will be extended to include the identification of marginalized population who has never received or completing immunization doses, other child health inventions such as Vitamin A, deworming, nutrition screening, HIV testing and treatment appropriate to their age through data analysis, capacity building and mentoring of health staff, use of public private partnership in reaching more children.
Scope of Work
A table may be used to summarize the tasks, deliverables, specific timeline and milestones (Sample below). Please state when and whether or not timeframes are negotiable - and if so under what circumstances
Additional guidance/examples: Where deliverables are reports, this section should state the reporting guidelines and list reports that have to be prepared during the assignment as well as deadlines for submission; it includes requirements such as contents, number of copies, language, who should receive the reports and whether they should be submitted electronically, in hard copy, or both. Examples of potential types of reports are: Inception Report, Progress Reports and Minutes of Meetings, Mission Reports, Technical Reports, Draft and Final Report, Training material, Presentation material, Workshop/training evaluation report.
Payment Schedule
Desired Competencies, Technical Background And Experience
Administrative issues
Conditions
Office space is not required, and the consultant works from home. Stating the conditions for the contract is very important. This may include information on
Risks
How To Apply
Interested and qualified candidates are requested to submit their application to the following link: https://www.unicef.org/about/employ/?job=535938 by 12 November 2020.
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