Consultancy - Measles & Rubella; Country Platform, Consultant for Laboratory and Surveillance

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 191-member National Societies. The overall aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” The IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

The IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of the IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

The IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world.

Due to the recent global financial cutbacks in public health and immunization activities, technical support to critical measles and rubella vaccination programs and structures has been put in jeopardy. Therefore, a partnership between the IFRC and the Measles and Rubella Partnership (M&RP) seeks to establish a Measles & Rubella Country Platform (M&R Country Platform) to overcome this gap in technical support to the critical programs. The M&R Country Platform serves to advance the goals of the Immunization Agenda 2030 and is committed to reducing measles and rubella morbidity and mortality by supporting countries to implement the Measles and Rubella Strategic Framework 2021- 2030.

The M&R Country Platform aligns to the Federation’s Strategy 2030 as it supports the achievement of Global Aims:
Global Aim 1: People anticipate, respond to and quickly recover from crisis.
Global Aim 2: People lead safe, health and dignified lives and have opportunities to thrive.

The main project objective is to support Ministry of Health’s preparedness to detect measles and rubella cases through the provision of technical assistance to laboratory networks at the global, regional, and country levels. In the context of building laboratory capacity for the diagnosis of vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs), a roster will be built of qualified consultants over a 24-month period who may be deployed for short term assignments to address priority issues within the laboratory networks. Exact TORs will vary depending on needs, but overall consultants will facilitate the development and maintenance of a high quality, proficient global laboratory network for VPD surveillance through strong collaboration with key technical partners and ensuring resources are available to support implementation of activities, develop global guidelines and set priorities to enhance laboratory capacities to provide high quality laboratory surveillance data to support public health surveillance.

Priorities within the laboratory network may shift but over the life of project of the roster. Current priorities for technical assistance are as follows:

1.Laboratory training workshops on measles and rubella diagnosis and sequence analysis in key priority regions including southeast Asia and Africa, including development of materials and onsite facilitation of workshops

•Initial Consultant Activities: To develop training materials (~2 weeks) and facilitate two workshops each 1 week (1 workshop for African Ministries of Health and 1 workshop for Ministries of Health in the Southeast Asian Region)

2.Temporary secondment of laboratory expert for measles and rubella diagnosis to priority laboratories (potentially including NICD, South Africa; Institut Pasteur Cote d’Ivoire, Turkey)

•Initial Consultant Activities: Consultant to conduct rapid assessment of laboratory performance and capacity and subsequently to build capacity to strengthen weak areas

3.Revision of the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Manual with special focus on inclusion of new protocols such as new molecular methods for detection and characterization of the viruses

•Initial Consultant Activities: Consultant to update laboratory manual to enable Ministries of Health to more accurately detect measles outbreaks and measles/rubella cases

4.Conducting on site laboratory accreditation reviews of Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network Regional and National Reference Laboratories

•Initial Consultant activities: update the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network checklist for the assessment of National and Regional Reference Laboratories for Measles and Rubella and upon approval by global laboratory experts, use the checklist for accreditation reviews in selected laboratories, particularly those having encountered performance issues recently

Required:

• Advanced level university degree in (clinical) virology, laboratory medicine or related field

Required:
•At least seven years of professional international work experience in the field of infectious disease diagnostics, with demonstrated international experience working in strengthening laboratory capacity and in planning, managing and implementing laboratory activities.
•Demonstrated experience with implementation of quality assurance and laboratory accreditation.
•Demonstrated experience in developing and/or coordinating development of manuals for laboratory procedures including but not limited to standard operating procedures (SOP) for laboratories.
•Extensive experience in coordinating and managing laboratory scientific projects and a strong understanding of VPD laboratory and surveillance networks.

Preferred:
•Relevant experience working with countries and laboratories in low resource settings.
•Demonstrated experience in health sector programme coordination and implementation.
•Experience working in the UN system or other significant partner organization in the field of laboratory practices

Required
•Excellent English written and oral communication skills. Ability to communicate and conduct work in English is required. Additional French language skills preferred.
•Demonstrated knowledge of laboratory diagnosis of VPDs pathogens, quality assurance systems and laboratory management.
•Demonstrated ability to coordinate a global VPDs laboratory network.
•Demonstrated understanding of, and formulating effective responses to, the unique challenges of public health surveillance in the developing world and capacity to interact successfully with members of partner organizations.
•Strong analytical and writing skills to identify critical technical issues and prepare a variety of documents, able to present and explain complex ideas and information in a succinct, logical way that is easy to understand.
•Excellent communication skills and demonstrated ability to clearly communicate information orally and in writing, to a diverse professional staff, regarding public health surveillance

Method of delivery and reasons for selecting that method
Remote support as well as deployment to country as needed to provide direct support to the laboratory network, the Ministry of Health, and in-country partners.

Support to be provided to the consultantThe consultant will be provided with support from the IFRC for travel, logistics, program management through the M&R Country Platform Office and Administrative Lead. Informal technical support from will be provided through colleagues at the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network (GMRLN)

Schedule for payment of fees
The consultant will be paid on a monthly schedule based on the receipt of invoices listing days worked at the contracted rate. Relevant travel and operational expenses will be included along with receipts for reimbursement.

Time Allocation, for budget purposes
40 hrs per week over a 2-4 month period depending on deployment.

Management of consultancy
The consultant will be directly managed by the IFRC M&R Country Platform Officer with overall coordination from the IFRC Immunization Senior Officer based in Geneva.

Application Instructions
Please submit your application in English only.
Please include the below in your application
•Curriculum Vitae
•A cover letter summarizing your experience and suggested approach to the consultancy
•Daily rate in CHF