Epidemiologist for the Evaluation of Community-based Surveillance in Syria

CONTEXT

MSF-OCBA is currently running 2 projects in NWS, supporting health care facilities including:  maternities, hospitals, PHCCs, mobile clinics and COVID 19 hospitals. MSF is working in partnership with local stakeholders (DoH and local NGOs) and is generally in charge of supervision, technical support and donation of medical supplies. The projects aim to contribute to reduce mortality and morbidities in improving the access to quality and free of charge health care. Both projects are run in remote management with the coordination team based in Amman, Jordan (including Field Cos & PMRs) and the field teams, all Syrian nationals, based directly in NAP and IDAL.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

MSF-OCBA launched the CBS program in northwest Syria in 2020 to monitor health needs, and morbidity and mortality trends within OCBA’s catchment areas. It fits within the strategic visioning of MSF-OCBA for 2020-23 and beyond focuses on proximity, and vows to be “unambiguously people-centered”.

The Community Based Surveillance was designed in 2020 and a team of 28 CHWs was deployed in 14 camps in Idlib and Jabel Saman districts (IDAL catchment area), while the program has been extended to NAP project in March 2022. During the first six months the program was run through a partner in Idal, then directly by MSF with the CHWs under MSF Contract. Authorizations to run the program were provided monthly by the Authorities, subjected to monthly reports, then every six months and finally annually for 2022. Questions related to SV, SGVB, comments/statements on perception of authorities are very sensitive topics for the HTS and SSG and could jeopardize the project.

There are two components to the CBS: one that deals with immediate reports of reportable conditions or unusual deaths or events by either community members or partners, and another component that deals with routine surveillance data collection utilizing short questionnaires (Please see the SOP in Annex 1). For both types of data collection, any information of unusual trends or events will be analyzed. If thresholds are reached, an alert will be called. First the CHWs or CHW supervisor will verify the alert. Upon verification, a multidisciplinary investigation will be launched. If warranted this investigation will be followed by the appropriate response.

The routine surveillance component of the Syria CBS uses a unique model of data collection, automated analysis and reporting system (Figure 3). Data are collected every work day by CHWs electronically using KoBo Collect on mobile devices; data are then compiled, cleaned and enriched through a series of R scripts. Then, the “prepared” data will be fed through another series of scripts to produce automated reports. The mission epidemiologist checks the data daily for errors or unusual reports and edits the automatically produced biweekly report of significant trends (by mid round, the CBS would have covered 25% of the population in each target area) and an in-depth monthly report (see Annex 2 and 3 for sample reports).

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

• A proposal detailing the plan to conduct the evaluation and the expected budget (estimated workload: 50 consultancy days)
• A cover letter highlighting applicants’ experience with similar past assignments (max 1 page)
• CV of applicant

Applications should be sent to veuapplication@vienna.msf.org

Note: the epidemiologist will be part of a team of 2-3 evaluators from the VEU, and depending on his/her/them experience will be the lead evaluator