The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries by strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector to create and sustain high quality health systems. For more information about CHAI visit http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Project Overview:

In 2006, CHAI signed an MOU with the Malawian government to strengthen health systems in the most challenged districts, provide national support to HIV/AIDS drug pricing and programmatic work, support the pilot and scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) initiatives, expand access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for children, strengthen Malawi’s laboratory system, and scale up an integrated nutrition program for children. Since then, CHAI’s support to Malawi has expanded to include human resources for health, vaccines, and health financing. 

CHAI Malawi supported the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in the introduction and scale up of point-of-care (POC) innovations and technologies to enhance diagnostics and monitoring of HIV/AIDS and human papillomavirus (HPV). These innovations include mPIMA for early infant diagnosis (EID) testing, GeneXpert for EID, viral load (VL) testing and HPV testing. CHAI also joined the fight to stop the spread of COVID-19 pandemic from its onset through the introduction, validation, training and scaling-up of SARS-CoV- 2 testing using PCR (GeneXpert) and antigen rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) (PanBio, Standard Q and Lumira Dx). All of these interventions have resulted in the reduction of turnaround time for HIV, HPV and COVID-19 testing, sped up clinical decision-making, enhanced linkage to care, and reduced the spread of diseases. CHAI also supports MOH with system strengthening activities including supply chain and data management.

Position Overview:

CHAI Malawi is looking for an exceptional individual to work as an Associate under its diagnostics and Digital health teams. The Associate will support the team by carrying out operational research, programmatic assessments and scoping activities for new projects to improve health diagnostics in Malawi. They will support the establishment, analysis and implementation of different activity within the projects. The Associate will also conduct data analysis for all the diagnostics projects at CHAI but specifically on the projects mentioned below. The Associate will report to the CHAI Diagnostics Program Manager.

COVID-19 community testing operational research

• Support drafting of operational research protocols in readiness for IRB review
• Support drafting of study protocols when new diagnostic products come into market and require evaluation
• Oversee data collection for ongoing operational research for COVID-19
• Conduct analysis of operational research and program data to achieve monitoring, evaluation, and research objectives
• Present study and program data to in-country stakeholders and support dissemination at international platforms when required
• Organize trainings and create monitoring tools for studies in order to ensure the highest quality of personnel and data
• Support mentorship activities at testing sites to enhance data quality and availability
• Support quantification and forecasting of commodities for scale up of diagnostics services
• Support COVID-19 testing activities in-country including introduction of new testing kits and lab network optimization

Africa Health Diagnostics Project (AHDP)

• Develop scoping, capacity assessment, and gap analysis tools for diagnostics services in Malawi
• Conduct data collection, cleaning, analysis and reporting for AHDP project
• Conduct stakeholder engagements required to establish a possible public-private partnership agreement in the diagnostics landscape in Malawi
• Organize meetings with MoHP to develop a governance model for implementation and oversight of future projects
• Organize review meetings and prepare materials to present the progress of the project at all stages

Cross-cutting activities

• Attend policy meetings and prepare presentations for the ministry and partners
• Provide impartial advice to the MoHP on policy and technological issues relating to viral load testing, linkage to treatment, point of care and other general diagnostics topics
• Liaise with CHAI’s global Laboratory Services Team (LST) on programmatic and policy issues
• Liaise with other CHAI Malawi teams to ensure that Malawi diagnostics programming integrates into CHAI’s broader work on increasing patient access to services and reducing mortality
• Work to improve the public health system in Malawi by increasing access to care for all patients and ensuring long-term sustainability
• Support resource mobilization efforts for COVID-19 testing and other relevant diagnostics topics
• Attend to other duties as requested by the management team

• Bachelor’s degree in Epidemiology, Biostatistics or Public Health plus 2-3 years of work experience
• Fluency in English; excellent written and oral communications skills
• Strong quantitative capacities, problem solving skills and analytical capabilities
• Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, set priorities, and work independently and flexibly while maintaining a strong commitment to excellence
• Ability to be effective in high-pressure situations and work in a fast-paced environment with limited structural support
• Ability to maintain strong relationships with a variety people and organizations, including but not limited to: high-level MoHP officials, district health officers, laboratory professionals, partner programmatic staff, and other CHAI employees
• High level of proficiency in relevant computer applications including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Advantages

• MSc in in Epidemiology, Biostatistics or Public Health
• Familiarity with issues specific to laboratories and diagnostics
• Familiarity with the Malawi health system  or sub-Saharan African countries
• Experience working in the healthcare industry
• Experience managing a research study
• Vast experience in data analysis (R, SPSS,STATA or Epi Info)

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