Senior National Immunization and Outbreak Response Officers

Job Title

Senior National Immunization & Outbreak Response Officers

Company/Organisation

Africa CDC

Location

Not specified

Job Description and Responsibilities

Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that supports Member States in their efforts to strengthen their health systems. Africa CDC was officially launched on 31 January 2017, and is guided by the principles of leadership, credibility, ownership, delegated authority, timely dissemination of information, transparency, accountability, and value addition. The institution works with all African Union Member States to strengthen the capabilities of their public health institutions for disease surveillance, emergency response, prevention and control, including the capacity to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats. It also serves as a platform for Member States to share and exchange knowledge and lessons from public health interventions.

Effective public health interventions/actions require an adequately staffed, highly skilled, diverse, and interdisciplinary workforce. Africa stands at a critical inflection point for immunization and health security. The Continental Immunization Strategy (CIS) responds to this moment by accelerating momentum to achieve immunization goals, and repositions immunization as a core function of resilient, epidemic-ready Primary Health Care (PHC) and as a strategic investment for health security, sovereignty, and economic development.

In seeking to achieve this objective and deliver on the mandate of the Africa CDC, the African Union intends to strengthen its capacity by the reinforcement of its organizational structure and expertise. The Africa CDC therefore seeks to recruit nationals and citizens of any Member State of the African Union to the position of Senior National Immunization & Outbreak Response Officers within the Immunization Division.

Main Functions

Under the direct supervision of the Director of Immunization with the collaboration of the Regional Directors of the Regional Coordinating Centres; the Senior National Immunization & Outbreak Response Officers will support Africa CDC and Member States to strengthen immunization programs sustainability through increasing domestic resources, reach zero dose and under immunized with precision and with strengthened primary health care, achieve high and equitable coverage in complex settings, strengthen use of digital tools, optimize country leadership, as well as, emergency preparedness, readiness, and response (EPR) capacities, with particular emphasis on immunization systems resilience, prevention of outbreak-prone diseases, and public health emergencies.

Specific Responsibilities

• Provide strategic guidance to Member states on immunization resilience planning and develop practical toolkits including tools to catalyse domestic resource mobilization for sustainable immunization in line with the Continental Immunization Strategy
• Contribute and work with Member States and partners to strengthen coordination, in line with the Lusaka Agenda at national and subnational levels including support to NITAGs
• Provide support for health worker including community health workers capacity for problem solving innovation and use of digital tools to enhance performance in complex settings
• Support advanced analytics and use of routine data monitoring of immunization coverage at decision making levels and strengthen ability to use digitally enabled data for operational decision-making in identifying and reaching zero dose and under immunized populations with precision.
• Support the digitalization of immunization services, including fostering e-birth notification and digitalization of immunization registers, supply management and strengthen interoperability with National Health Information Systems
• Support optimization of service delivery practices in complex settings and facilitate integration with PHC, and use of innovative human centered approaches in high burden communities
• Support GIS enabled mapping of epidemic prone vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) in the respective Member States and support tailored in -time actions in collaboration with other partners.
• Provide strategic guidance on strengthening surveillance of VPDs at national level and integration of multifaceted immunization data as a norm.
• Support the strengthening of the active surveillance, reporting, and investigation of adverse events following immunization.
• Enhance continental immunization performance monitoring, accountability, and peer learning to accelerate effective approaches
• Support efforts to build pandemic preparedness capacity of Member States.
• Support or serve within the Incident Management System (IMS), providing hands-on technical assistance across coordination, response operations, emergency vaccination, surge workforce deployment, and field implementation.
• Develop operational guidelines, tools, and manuals for preparedness capacity building for response to Vaccine preventable disease outbreaks in collaboration with partners.
• Provide technical support in simulation exercise on emergency preparedness jointly with Member States and other partners
• Provide senior-level technical leadership to national and sub‑national authorities on immunization activities to enhance preparedness planning, ensure rapid and coordinated outbreak response, and strengthen compliance with International Health Regulations (IHR 2005)
• Provide technical support for the conduct of IHR monitoring and evaluation framework activities and the development and revisions of national action plans for health security (NAPHS)
• Contribute to workforce development by supporting trainings, workshops, mentorship, and capacity assessments for emergency response and immunization teams at all levels, while fostering strong coordination with Ministries of Health, National Public Health Institutes, and partners.

Required Skills

• Strong analytical capabilities
• Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team and personal qualities of integrity and credibility
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with exceptional attention to details
• Ability to work under pressure, stay on track and meet deadlines
• Analytical and problem-solving abilities
• Proven ability to produce precise and intelligible reports and office briefs in line with the requirements of the African Union.
• Able to operate in a multicultural environment
• High level of autonomy at work, yet with profound team spirit
• Adaptive, patient, resourceful, resilient and flexible
• Pro-active and solutions oriented

Academic Requirements and Relevant Experience

Master's degree in public health or a related field from an accredited academic institution with at least 7 years of relevant professional experience with demonstrated involvement in the successful development and management of immunization and/or EPR programs,

or

Bachelor's degree in the above fields with at least 10 years of relevant professional experience in related fields.

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted no later than May 7 ,2026 11h59 p.m. EAT. -Only candidates who meet all job requirements and are selected for interviews will be contacted. -Consideration will be given only to those candidates who have submitted a fully completed online application with a curriculum vitae (CV), an African passport, and the required academic qualifications, such as Diplomas, Bachelor's degrees, Master's degrees and any relevant certificate in line with the area of expertise. -The African Union is an equal opportunity employer, and female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. -Candidates from less represented countries within the African Union are strongly encouraged to apply for positions that fit their profiles. These countries include Algeria, Angola, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Sahrawi D.R., Sao Tome and Principe., Seychelles, Somalia and Tunisia.