Team Lead Infection, Prevention & Control (IPC), SHA-Secondment to WHO  

Purpose of the Position

In the context of the WHO Health Emergencies Incident Management System (IMS), at WHO Sudan the incumbent will provide leadership, technical support and guidance to the Ministry of Health and partners on strategic, organizational and operational aspects of a comprehensive Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) response and recovery activities to the public health effects of emergencies and disasters including disease outbreaks at the country level. S/he will manage IPC activities, provide technical guidance to ensure alignment with WHO IPC standard precautions and transmission-based precautions applicable to the current threat(s). The incumbent will provide monitoring and evaluation support for WHO IPC programme activities throughout the full cycle of incident management.

Objectives of the Programme and of the immediate Strategic Objective

The mission of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme (The Programme) is to help countries, and to coordinate international action, to prevent, prepare for, be operationally ready for, detect, rapidly respond to, and recover from outbreaks and emergencies.

Organizational Context (Describe the individual role of incumbent within the team, focusing on work environment within and outside the organization)

Supervised by the Incident Manager, and under the overall guidance of the Deputy WHO Country Representative and Head of the WHO Country office and working closely with counterparts at the respective regional office and HQ, the incumbent will act as the incident management's technical lead for IPC. S/he will manage the IPC component of the incident management system, assessment, support the revision and update of the IPC measures and practices, and provide technical guidance to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and partners. S/he will establish and maintain good collaboration with partners, provide supportive supervision and oversight of response activities for WHO deployed IPC specialist(s), liaise with other units/teams within the country office and across the organization as well as partners to facilitate the development of a detailed work plan and budget for WHO operations.

The incumbent will be responsible for coordinating the implementation of the approved activities and to ensure alignment of purpose between headquarters and the regional office on matters related to IPC. S/he will also be responsible for reporting, performance assessment and evaluation of the planned activities, for monitoring the availability and flow of financial resources and ensure proper communication with partners and as appropriate.

Summary of Assigned Duties (Describe what the incumbent has to do to achieve main objectives; include main achievements expected):

1) Revitalize the IPC working group or task force led by national or sub-national MoH authorities with the involvement of implementing partners.

i. Ensure a consistent and evidence-based IPC strategy is adopted by all response personnel

ii. Follow up with FMOH to ensure consistency of the biweekly IPC TWG meetings

2) Coordinate and/or perform healthcare facility and/or treatment unit assessments of IPC measures in the affected areas and advise on actions, systems, and associated material, infrastructure, and human resources needed to enable appropriate implementation of standard precautions and transmission-based precautions

i. Continue coordination of data collection in close collaboration with FMOH and SMOHs.

ii. Perform data cleaning and data analysis in close collaboration with information management colleagues, FMOH.

iii. Contributed to writing a report for the national IPCAF assessment

iv. Disseminate findings of the IPCAF/IPC RAT assessment through workshops and other forums together with FMOH and SMOHs and partners in order to reach different stakeholders of different categories.

3) Reinforce training efforts , revie training strategy and using available training materials, compliance assessments, and evaluations, and conduct IPC training and supportive supervision for staff and surge personnel at district hospitals and health facilities with priority to implementing standard precautions and transmission-based precautions applicable to the cholera and other infectious diseases

i. Follow up with FMOH and SMOH on the cascade of training by the trainers

ii. Conduct the supervision of training cascades in different states

iii. Colead the training for MOH staff and WHO partners to build up local competences and ease the implementation the water, hygiene, sanitation and waste management standards for all health activities.

4) In coordination with national level IPC emergency response representative or national IPC focal point, develop and support implementation of infection prevention and control (IPC) standard operating procedures and an action plan contextual to the situation of the incident and known or anticipated infectious risks to health workers, patients, and visitors.

i. Follow up with FMOH on the cascade of trainings on IPC checklist and scorecard

ii. Follow-up on the implementation of the IPC checklist and scorecard with FMOH and partners

iii. Resource mapping of supplies and PPEs for CTC's/CTU's in collaboration with partners and FMOH

5) Advise, and when required provide onsite support to the health partners on IPC, proactively co-design and coordinate the implementation of plans to build up or rehabilitate cholera CTCs and other infectious disease management facilities.

6) Represent IPC in different meetings and forums including; WHO 3-level call, IMS meetings, Cholera cell meeting, health cluster meeting, zonal hub meeting, etc

7) Contributed to various information products and resource mobilization efforts including evaluation or situation reports and donor proposals

8) Perform any other related incident-specific duties, as required by the functional supervisor