Senior Outbreak Response Coordination Lead, STRIDES
PATH · DRC
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PATH is a global nonprofit dedicated to achieving health equity. With more than 40 years of experience forging multisector partnerships and with expertise in science, economics, technology, advocacy, and dozens of other specialties, PATH develops and scales up innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing health challenges.
PATH seeks a Senior Outbreak Response Coordination Lead for the STRengthening Infectious disease DEtection Systems (STRIDES) Project. The global project supports and strengthens surveillance, detection, response, and analytical capacity for infectious diseases across human and animal health systems.
The Senior Outbreak Response Coordination Lead will be based in Bunia, Ituri Province, and will provide senior-level technical, operational, and coordination leadership for STRIDES-supported outbreak response activities in Eastern DRC, with an emphasis on Ebola Virus Disease and other epidemic- and pandemic-prone diseases. The position will support coordination across provincial and health-zone authorities, technical response pillars, implementing partners, donors, community-facing response teams, and national response structures.
The position will serve as a key STRIDES field-based coordination focal point for the EVD outbreak response, helping ensure that project activities are technically sound, operationally feasible, aligned with Government of DRC priorities, and coordinated with the broader outbreak response architecture.
The successful candidate should bring strong experience in disease surveillance,EVD outbreak response, and working with government health authorities at the national, provincial, health-zone, and health-area level in DRC. This may include the Ministry of Health (MOH), Centre des Opérations d'Urgences de Santé Publique (COUSP), Institut National de Santé Publique (INSP), Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), Direction de Surveillance Epidémiologique (DSE), Programme National de l'Hygiène aux Frontières (PNHF), and Ituri’s Division Provinciale de la Santé (DPS). The candidate should also have direct experience working with the Bureau Central de la Zone de Santé (BCZ) and Médecin Chef de Zone (MCZ), as well as health-area and health-center management and surveillance teams, including IT/ITAs and RECOs. Prior experience coordinating with other relevant stakeholders and outbreak response partners in DRC, including Africa CDC, WHO, US government agencies, UN agencies, and international and national NGOs, will also be critical to this role.
The Senior Outbreak Response Coordination Lead must meet or exceed the required qualifications listed below. The individual should be a senior outbreak response professional with strong technical understanding of Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fever responses, demonstrated ability to coordinate complex field operations, and the judgment to operate effectively in high-pressure, rapidly evolving, and politically sensitive response environments.
Responsibilities include:
Outbreak response coordination and leadership:
- Provide senior-level field coordination and technical leadership for PATH activities under STRIDES-supported outbreak preparedness and response in the DRC.
- Serve as the primary Bunia-based coordination focal point for PATH under STRIDES outbreak response activities, ensuring effective communication between field teams, provincial authorities, health-zone teams, national counterparts, technical partners, and project leadership.
- Support alignment of STRIDES activities with Government of DRC-led response priorities, provincial response plans, incident management structures, and partner coordination mechanisms.
- Coordinate closely with national, provincial, health-zone, and health-area government structures, including MOH, COUSP, INSP, INRB, DSE, PNHF, Ituri DPS, BCZs, MCZs, health-area teams, health-center teams, IT/ITAs, Community Health care workers (Relais Communautaire or RECOs), and other frontline surveillance structures.
- Coordinate closely with WHO, Africa CDC, CDC, other US government agencies, UNICEF, IOM, MSF, other UN agencies, international and national NGOs, implementing partners, and local authorities involved in outbreak preparedness and response.
- Facilitate coordination across key response pillars, including surveillance, case management, contact investigation, points of entry, logistics, data management, operations, and other pillars as deemed necessary.
- Support preparation, implementation, and follow-up of coordination meetings, technical working groups, pillar meetings, partner meetings, and field review sessions.
- Identify coordination gaps, duplication, bottlenecks, and unmet technical or operational needs, and propose practical solutions.
- Support establishment of clear roles, responsibilities, referral pathways, information flows, escalation mechanisms, and follow-up systems across partners and response structures.
- Track agreed actions, timelines, responsible parties, and implementation progress across STRIDES-supported outbreak response activities.
- Support rapid prioritization of response activities based on epidemiological risk, operational feasibility, available resources, partner presence, access constraints, and community needs.
- Provide regular updates to STRIDES leadership on field implementation progress, coordination issues, risks, urgent needs, and recommended corrective actions.
Technical support to Ebola and outbreak response implementation
- Provide technical oversight and quality assurance for STRIDES-supported Ebola and outbreak response activities, particularly those related to surveillance, epidemiology, data systems, contact tracing, points of entry, points of control, and cross-border or interprovincial surveillance.
- Support strengthening of systems for alert detection, notification, verification, investigation, classification, referral, and reporting.
- Support active case finding, community-based surveillance, event-based surveillance, health facility surveillance, mortality surveillance, and laboratory-linked surveillance.
- Support implementation and quality improvement of contact tracing, case investigation, transmission chain analysis, and follow-up of high-risk contacts.
- Support the use of timely and high-quality surveillance and response data for decision-making at provincial, health-zone, health-area, health-facility, and national levels.
- Work with data and health information system teams to strengthen dashboards, line lists, situation reports, data review processes, and data quality improvement activities.
- Support geolocation and mapping of cases, contacts, alerts, points of entry, points of control, health facilities, response assets, population movement routes, and high-risk areas.
- Support interprovincial and cross-border surveillance coordination, including information sharing and follow-up of mobile cases, contacts, alerts, travelers, and population movements.
- Provide input into Ebola and outbreak response plans, operational guidance, standard operating procedures, training materials, supervision tools, partner workplans, and technical reports.
- Ensure technical activities are implemented in alignment with national guidance, International Health Regulations, Joint External Evaluation recommendations, Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response principles, One Health approaches, and relevant global outbreak response standards.
Partner engagement and stakeholder management
- Maintain regular engagement with national, provincial, health-zone, health-area, and health-facility government counterparts, technical partners, donors, and implementing organizations involved in outbreak preparedness and response.
- Build and maintain effective working relationships with DRC-based stakeholders, particularly those operating in Bunia, Ituri, and surrounding outbreak-affected or high-risk areas.
- Engage directly with MOH, COUSP, INSP, INRB, DSE, PNHF, DPS, BCZ, MCZ, health-area teams, health-center teams, IT/ITAs, RECOs, and other relevant government and community-level surveillance actors.
- Coordinate with Africa CDC, WHO, CDC, other US government agencies, UN agencies, international NGOs, national NGOs, local authorities, and community-level actors involved in outbreak preparedness and response.
- Support STRIDES participation in coordination platforms and ensure that project contributions are visible, complementary, and aligned with broader response priorities.
- Support communication between field teams, project leadership, donor representatives, government counterparts, and technical partners.
- Represent STRIDES in technical and coordination meetings as requested.
- Support negotiation and problem-solving with partners to resolve implementation barriers, avoid duplication, and promote coordinated response delivery.
- Facilitate partner mapping and analysis of who is doing what, where, and with what resources.
- Support coordination with community structures, local leaders, civil society organizations, and frontline workers when required for response implementation.
- Promote respectful, collaborative, government-led implementation approaches that strengthen existing systems rather than create parallel structures.
Operational planning and field implementation
- Lead or support development, refinement, and implementation of field deployment plans, activity workplans, microplanning, supervision plans, and response implementation trackers.
- Coordinate with technical, programmatic, operations, finance, procurement, logistics, and security staff to ensure activities are implemented according to approved workplans, budgets, donor requirements, and response priorities.
- Support rapid operational assessments to identify needs related to staffing, tools, training, logistics, reporting, transport, communications, data systems, and supervision.
- Provide field-based troubleshooting and problem-solving support to ensure continuity of critical surveillance and response activities.
- Support planning and implementation of trainings, orientations, simulation exercises, after-action reviews, and supportive supervision visits.
- Monitor implementation progress and provide regular updates on achievements, challenges, risks, gaps, and recommended corrective actions.
- Support preparation of field reports, donor updates, situation summaries, technical briefs, action trackers, and end-of-deployment or end-of-activity reports.
- Ensure that field activities consider security, access, community acceptance, safeguarding, infection prevention and control, and duty-of-care requirements.
Data use, reporting, and learning
- Support the technical team in promoting routine use of surveillance, epidemiological, laboratory, contact tracing, and operational data for decision-making.
- Support the technical team in documentation of lessons learned promising practices, operational constraints, and recommendations for future Ebola, viral hemorrhagic fever, and epidemic-prone disease preparedness and response.
- Contribute to internal learning and strategic planning for STRIDES infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response activities.
- Review and contribute to project reports, donor deliverables, technical publications, and external communications.
Team leadership and supervision
- Provide day-to-day “oversight”, technical guidance, mentorship, and coordination support to field-based STRIDES staff and consultants supporting outbreak response activities.
- Support onboarding, orientation, and deployment readiness of technical surge staff, consultants, and field teams.
- Help define team roles, responsibilities, workplans, deliverables, and reporting expectations.
- Promote collaboration, accountability, learning, and high-quality implementation across STRIDES-supported field activities.
- Identify staff capacity needs and recommend coaching, mentoring, training, or surge support as needed.
Required qualifications and experience
- Advanced degree or international equivalent in public health, epidemiology, medicine, emergency management, global health, veterinary medicine, health systems, international development, or a related field from a recognized institution.
- At least eight years of progressively responsible experience in outbreak response, epidemic preparedness, public health emergency management, surveillance, field epidemiology, or global health security programming.
- Demonstrated experience supporting Ebola response, another viral hemorrhagic fever response, or a comparable high-consequence infectious disease emergency.
- Strong experience working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, preferably in Eastern DRC.
- Demonstrated experience working with government health authorities at the national, provincial, health-zone, and health-area level, including direct engagement with MOH, COUSP, INSP, INRB, DSE, PNHF, DPS, BCZ, MCZ, health-area teams, health-center teams, IT/ITAs, RECOs, and other frontline surveillance structures.
- Demonstrated experience coordinating with relevant DRC stakeholders and partners, including Africa CDC, WHO, CDC, other US government agencies, UN agencies, international NGOs, national NGOs, local authorities, and community-level actors.
- Strong technical understanding of Ebola response pillars, including surveillance, case investigation, contact tracing, case management, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, vaccination, safe and dignified burial, points of entry, logistics, and data management.
- Demonstrated ability to coordinate multi-partner, multisectoral, and multi-pillar response activities in complex emergency settings.
- Experience supporting government-led outbreak coordination mechanisms, technical working groups, partner coordination platforms, or emergency operations centers.
- Demonstrated ability to analyze epidemiological and operational information, identify problems, and recommend practical, context-appropriate solutions.
- Experience developing or supporting response plans, implementation trackers, technical guidance, standard operating procedures, training materials, supervision tools, situation reports, donor reports, or after-action reviews.
- Experience working on US government-funded programs or large donor-funded health projects is strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively with senior government officials, technical experts, implementing partners, donors, field teams, and community stakeholders.
- Strong facilitation, negotiation, communication, relationship management, and problem-solving skills.
- Demonstrated ability to supervise, mentor, and coordinate staff or field teams.
- Ability to work independently with limited supervision while maintaining close coordination with project leadership and response structures.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities, short deadlines, sensitive relationships, and rapidly changing field conditions.
- Fluency in written and spoken French is required.
- Working proficiency in English is strongly preferred.
- Knowledge of Swahili or other languages commonly used in Eastern DRC is highly desirable.
- Willingness and ability to be based in Bunia and travel frequently to priority health zones and other outbreak-affected or high-risk locations.
- Ability and willingness to work in remote, resource-constrained, high-pressure, and potentially insecure environments.
Preferred qualifications
- Current residence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or prior long-term professional experience in DRC.
- Established professional relationships with national and global stakeholders and outbreak response partners in DRC.
- Prior leadership or coordination role in an Ebola or viral hemorrhagic fever response in DRC.
- Experience supporting response operations in Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo, Equateur, or other provinces affected by Ebola or other epidemic-prone diseases.
- Experience coordinating cross-border or interprovincial surveillance activities.
- Experience with emergency operations centers, incident management systems, public health emergency management, or humanitarian coordination structures.
- Field Epidemiology Training Program certification, public health emergency management training, or equivalent applied outbreak response training.
- Experience with DHIS2, Go.Data, KoboToolbox, Power BI, ArcGIS, QGIS, or other outbreak response tools.
- Experience supporting donor engagement, technical reporting, and senior-level briefings.
- Experience working in areas affected by insecurity, displacement, limited access, or complex humanitarian conditions.
Travel and duty station requirements
- This position will be based in Bunia, Ituri Province.
- The position requires frequent travel within Ituri and to other outbreak-affected or high-risk areas of DRC.
- Travel to Kinshasa may be required for coordination, reporting, planning, or engagement with national-level stakeholders.
- Travel to border areas or cross-border coordination locations may be required depending on outbreak response priorities.
- The staff member must comply with PATH and Government of the DRC policies and procedures related to security, safeguarding, professional conduct, data protection, confidentiality, and infection prevention and control.