The incumbent will perform the following duties:

1. Lead the development of infection prevention and control (IPC) normative guidelines and standards for readiness and response of infectious disease outbreaks (community and health care associated infections) and other public health emergencies (PHE), focusing on the development of the guideline on IPC for acute respiratory infections in the context of emergencies and pandemics.
2. Lead the development of guideline derivative products (e.g. SOPs, assessment tools, risk communication products) as well as the dissemination and implementation strategies and monitoring and evaluation frameworks of corresponding technical products
3. Support the coordination and activities related to the IPC Public Health Emergencies (PHE) Working Group (WG). This includes coordinating meetings and ensuring implementation of IPC PHE WG workplan.
4. Participate and provide IPC technical and operational support to PHE Incident Management System Teams (IMST) as required.
5. Perform any other incident-specific related duties, as required by the functional supervisor.

Education

Essential:
Advanced level University degree (Master's level or above) in nursing, medicine, microbiology, epidemiology, or public health from an accredited/recognized institute, with a post- graduate certificate or diploma in Infection Prevention and Control.

Experience

Essential:
1) At least seven years of experience in the field of Infection Prevention and Control, at the national and international levels, in managing programmes to improve quality and safety of health services.
2) Experience with guideline development at national or international level.
3) Experience with management of outbreaks and public health emergencies in developing/resource limited settings.

Desirable:
1. Experience with implementation research or evaluation of health interventions and programmes.
2. Experience or sound knowledge of WHO mandate and goals related to outbreaks, emergency risk and crises management or experience in UN organizations/agencies, international institutions or NGOs.

Skills

1. Knowledge and experience in the implementation of Infection Prevention and Control programmes.
   2. Knowledge and experience in the development and writing of guidelines and the GRADE process.
   3. Excellent oral and written skills in English.
   4. Strong interpersonal, networking and diplomacy skills, and ability to work with and/or coordinate a diverse groups of stakeholders.
   5. Knowledge of WHO country, regional and global functions.
   6. Knowledge of outbreak response operations and their implementation in public health emergencies including experience with managing outbreaks in health care facilities.
   7. Demonstrated ability to identify and manage multiple projects concurrently, prioritizing the allocation of work and developing and adjusting operational procedures.
   
   

WHO Competencies

1. Teamwork
   2. Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences
   3. Communication
   4. Building and promoting partnerships across the organization and beyond
   5. Ensuring the effective use of resources

Use of Language Skills

Essential:
Expert knowledge of English.

Desirable:
1. Intermediate knowledge of French.
2. Intermediate knowledge of Spanish.

About World Health Organization

The mission of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme (The Programme) is to build the capacities of Member States to safely manage health emergency risks and, when national capacities are overwhelmed, to lead and coordinate the international response to mitigate, contain, provide effective relief and recovery to affected populations. The Programme supports countries and coordinates international action, to prevent, prepare for, detect, timely respond to, and recover from outbreaks and other public health emergencies. The objectives of the Country Readiness Strengthening Department is to achieve effective operational readiness and response for the most imminent and serious health emergencies. The department supports Member States to develop, establish and finance comprehensive readiness plans for health security that are facilitated by strategic partnerships across all relevant sectors. Operational readiness is critical for countries, communities and organizations to have the capability to be able to respond immediately and appropriately to health emergencies from any hazard when required. Strengthening operational readiness is based on a continuous process of assessing current risk bas...ed on the identification of hazards with the highest likelihood and severity against the level of existing capacities and vulnerabilities. This is a continuous process followed by the assessment of readiness capabilities and the acceleration of targeted actions at trigger for an imminent threat to ensure an efficient emergency response. Readiness is a status of specific capabilities to quickly and appropriately respond when required to mitigate the impact of specific risk(s) and is built upon preparedness. The Health Care Readiness (HCR) Unit works on end to end processes covering all emergency management cycles, to enhance preparedness, operational readiness and response measures. This includes the development of technical infection prevention control and clinical care standards, norms, standards tools and guidelines; also covers the processes for health emergency workforce, surge capacities and quality assurance systems and procedures. The unit's work is at the core of the safe and scalable care subsystem to build core capacities of Member States to ensure they have systems in place ensuring the right working conditions and standards for health workforce as well as capacity to deploy surge workforce when needs arise. The unit works with several networks at international, regional and country level including academia to bring partners together for norm setting, advancing research and innovation, capacity strengthening and rapid deployment of health care experts for surge capacity. Agility and operational readiness are critical to provide both immediate, short-term safe and quality care to reduce the loss of life and prevent long-term disability in different public health emergency scenarios.

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