Epidemiologist (4 positions)

Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Uganda (Baylor-Uganda) is an indigenous not-for-profit child health and development organisation affiliated to the Baylor College of Medicine International Paediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI), a network of paediatric HIV/AIDS care and treatment Children's Clinical Centres of Excellence and international program offices in 11 countries across Africa and Eastern Europe.

Baylor Uganda is recruiting four Epidemiologists, based in Kampala, Uganda, to support the Ministry of Health and Baylor Foundation Uganda in strengthening the integrated healthcare package, including surveillance at community and facility levels, acute febrile illness and infection prevention and control, and to support the coordination role at the Regional Emergency Operations Centre (REOC). The officers will contribute to the timely detection, notification, verification and analysis of deaths to inform public health actions.

Key duties and responsibilities Data management and analysis through the REOC - Collect, validate and clean surveillance data from community and health facility sources. - Submit timely reports and dashboards to the REOC and national task forces. - Participate in REOC coordination meetings and contribute to response strategies. - Ensure integration of mortality data into national surveillance systems such as DHIS2 and EWARN. - Support data triangulation with case surveillance and burial team reports. - Build the capacity of the REOC in timely development and dissemination of information products. - Participate in record and data reviews to identify priority disease pathogens and take necessary action.

Regional and district coordination and capacity strengthening - Work with the REOC to support the regional coordination mechanism. - Conduct bi-weekly epidemic intelligence meetings. - Liaise with district surveillance officers, laboratory teams, burial teams, IPC focal persons and other stakeholders for a coordinated response. - Contribute to documentation of lessons learned and best practices for future outbreak responses. - Coordinate deployment of regional rapidly deployable teams during response activities and signal verification. - Ensure early action reviews are completed for all confirmed public health events and the 7-1-7 tracker is updated. - Coordinate and supervise implementation of the Epidemic Ready Primary Health Care model in health facilities in the respective regions and districts.

Community mortality surveillance - Support training and supervision of community health workers on death notification and verbal autopsy processes. - Coordinate community-based reporting of deaths and suspected SVD-related fatalities. - Facilitate community engagement and awareness activities to improve death reporting. - Ensure timely investigation and documentation of all reported community deaths, working with local leaders and VHTs to verify and trace reported deaths.

Health facility mortality surveillance using continuous quality improvement - Provide technical guidance to health facility staff on accurate medical certification of cause of death (MCCoD). - Support implementation of CQI approaches to enhance surveillance data accuracy, completeness and timeliness. - Facilitate regular death review meetings in health facilities and mentor staff on the use of ICD-10 codes. - Monitor and report on gaps in facility mortality surveillance and propose actionable improvements.

Acute febrile illness surveillance and alert management - Work with the REOC to monitor AFI performance in the region and conduct supportive supervision and targeted mentorships to poorly performing sites. - Support districts and VHTs in detection, triaging and verification of public health signals in accordance with national event-based surveillance protocols. - Apply epidemiological thresholds and statistical signal detection methods to differentiate true events from background noise and escalate validated alerts within stipulated timeframes. - Conduct rapid risk assessments for verified alerts and maintain a comprehensive alert log.

Points of entry and border health surveillance - Support districts in coordinating systematic screening of travellers. - Strengthen IPC and screening at points of entry and coordinate risk assessments.

Qualifications, skills and experience - Bachelor's degree in Medicine, Public Health or a related field; a Master's in Epidemiology, Public Health or a related field. - Training in Field Epidemiology is an added advantage. - At least 3-5 years of experience in regional or district programming, public health programming, surveillance, outbreak response or management, or epidemiology. - Experience in project cycle management and in setting up surveillance systems, mortality surveillance, verbal autopsy or death certification processes.

How to apply All suitably qualified and interested applicants should apply online through the application link on this listing. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.