Senior Outbreak Response Coordination Lead, STRIDES

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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-