Recruitment at World Health Organization (WHO)

Recruitment at World Health Organization (WHO)

World Health Organization (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Roster of Consultants – Clinical Expertise for the assessment of vaccines for the purpose of the WHO Prequalification and Emergency Use Listing

Job ID: 2403984
Location: Anywhere
Expected duration of contract: Contract duration varies based on the programme needs
Contractual Arrangement: External consultant
Organization: HQ/VAX Vaccines & Immunization Devices Assessment

Background  

• The World Health Organization (WHO), through its Regulation and Prequalification Department provides advice to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other United Nations agencies on the acceptability, in principle, of vaccines considered for purchase by such agencies. This service is called prequalification.
• The purpose of the WHO prequalification assessment is to provide assurance that candidate vaccines: (a) meet WHO recommendations on quality, safety and efficacy, including compliance with WHO’s recommended standards for good manufacturing practices (GMP) and good clinical practice (GCP); and (b) meet the operational packaging and presentation specifications of the relevant United Nations agency. Prequalification also supports the specific needs of national immunization programmes with regards to vaccine characteristic such as potency, thermostability, presentation, labelling and shipping conditions.
• The aim is to ensure that vaccines provided through the United Nations for use in national immunization services in different countries are safe, effective and suitable for the target populations at the recommended immunization schedules and with appropriate concomitant products.
• This important work is carried out with the support of international experts in Non-Clinical, Clinical and Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) evaluation of biological medicinal products, specifically vaccines. WHO is making a call to increase the number of consultants/experts available to support this very important public health responsibility.

Deliverables

• Produce timely assessment reports (AR) of the reviewed information.
• Report on critical, major, and other deficiencies detected during the review of the documentation/data (assigned to the consultant).
• Assess the applicant’s responses to queries raised in the AR and decide on the adequacy of each response. Several sets of queries may be necessary.
• Provide WHO with a recommendation and final remarks on the evaluation based on the documentation assigned for review to the consultant. This should be based on the most updated scientific and regulatory grounds.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Educational Qualifications:
Essential:

• Advanced university degree in medicine, biology, or pharmacy.

Desirable:

• A postgraduate degree in biostatistics or in epidemiology with focus on infectious diseases or related science.

Experience:
Essential:

• Over ten years’ experience in the field of infectious diseases, immunization and regulation of biological products including vaccines acquired by working in the field of immunization or community and preventive medicine at country or international level and/or with a National Regulatory Authority (NRAs), with at least 5 years respective experience at the national level.
• Extensive experience in the evaluation of clinical trials for vaccines.

Desirable:

• Experience at international level.
• Work experience in developing countries.

Skills:
Essential:

• Solid clinical scientific background, particularly in the area of infectious diseases and vaccines
• Expert must have technical skills and knowledge on the development, strengthening and monitoring of regulatory systems for vaccines, drugs, biologicals, and medical devices.

Desirable:

• Familiarity with WHO prequalification procedure, with WHO activities in strengthening the capacity to regulate clinical trials, vaccines as a biological medical product and /or with the NRA assessment procedure.

Languages required:
Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English.

Remuneration
Band level C: USD 500 – 625 per day.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2025.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Job Title: Consultant – TDR Disease Control

Job ID: 2500638
Location: Anywhere
Expected duration of contract: 11 months
Contractual Arrangement: External consultant
Organization: HQ/IMP Research for Implementation SCI

Background

• TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, is a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty.
• As part of the research for Implementation portfolio, TDR has been working with public health programmes and international partners, to support research efforts in low- and middle-income countries.

Deliverables
Task 1: Contribute to TDR activities for facilitating the introduction of malaria vaccine in west and central Africa countries. This activity will be conducted in collaboration with researchers of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, researchers of the University of Thies, project officers of the WHO Malaria Vaccine Implementation Unit (MVIP), WHO Malaria department and WHO pharmacovigilance department under the guidance of the responsible TDR officer.

• Output 1: (i) Draft a research package composed of a coverage survey research protocol, a guidance document for conducting interviews/focus group discussions to understand vaccine hesitancy, a case-control protocol to measure vaccine effectiveness (on non-severe malaria cases), and a cohort event monitoring protocol for measuring adverse events following immunization (AEFI), (ii) updated TDR website for malaria vaccine
• Expected by: June 2025
• Output 2:  Technical assistance provided to at least 4 countries in west and central Africa for the conduct of research informing the introduction of the malaria vaccine.
• Expected by: end of the consultancy

Task 2: Contribute to the delivery of a training programme on operational and implementation research for the west and central Africa regional network for TB control (WARN/CARN-TB) and provide support to at least 2 countries for TB research:

• This activity will be conducted in collaboration with the secretariat of the WARN/CARN-TB under the guidance of the TDR officer.
• Output 3: (i) development of a two-year training programme, (ii) coordinate with the secretariat on the delivery of the training module 2 (virtual one week training workshop), and (iii) technical support provided to at least 2 countries for the development and conduct of their research protocol.
• Expected by: end of the consultancy.

Task 3: Facilitate the finalisation of the publication process of the yellow fever root cause analysis toolkit

• Output 4: (i) published document, (ii) TDR news to announce its publication and (iii) updated yellow fever TDR webpage
  Expected by: end of July 2025

Task 4: Contribute to TDR projects related to the area of work as needed and contribution to TDR team activities

• Output 5: virtual participation at the IMP unit meeting and TDR staff meeting
  Expected by: end of the consultancy

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Educational Qualifications:
Essential:

• Advanced university level degree (Master’s level or above) in public health, epidemiology, or other relevant disciplines.

Experience:
Essential:

• At least 7 years of relevant experience combined at the national and international levels, in planning, programming, implementation of health/Immunization programmes.
• Experience in research (operational / implementation research – OR/IR) and data analysis.
• Experience in the delivery of OR/IR training programme.
• Field experience in Africa, Latin America or the Caribbean.

Desirable:

• Experience in disease control and vaccination.
• Experience with WHO, UN agencies, US CDC or a health cluster member organization.
• Experience with the WARN/CARN-TB.

Skills/Knowledge:
Essential:

• Proven ability in the development of a research toolkit
• Expertise in vaccination coverage surveys, vaccine hesitancy investigations
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Ability to work as a team with a variety of stakeholders and meet deadlines
• Proficiency in the Microsoft office suite of applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint) and remote working technologies

Desirable:

• Background/familiarity with emergency settings
• Sound knowledge of vaccine preventable diseases
• Sound knowledge of Tuberculosis
• Languages and level required

Languages and Level Required:
Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English
• Expert knowledge of French.

Remuneration
Band level B: USD 7,000 – 9,980 per month.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2025.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Job Title: Consultant – Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) Expertise for the Assessment of Vaccines for the Purpose of the WHO Prequalification and Emergency Use Listing

Job ID: 2500615
Location: Anywhere
Job type: Full-time
Contractual Arrangement: External consultant
Organization: HQ/VAX Vaccines & Immunization Devices Assessment

Background  

• The World Health Organization (WHO), through its Regulation and Prequalification Department provides advice to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other United Nations agencies on the acceptability, in principle, of vaccines considered for purchase by such agencies. This service is called prequalification.
• The purpose of the WHO prequalification assessment is to provide assurance that candidate vaccines: (a) meet WHO recommendations on quality, safety and efficacy, including compliance with WHO’s recommended standards for good manufacturing practices (GMP) and good clinical practice (GCP); and (b) meet the operational packaging and presentation specifications of the relevant United Nations agency. Prequalification also supports the specific needs of national immunization programmes with regards to vaccine characteristic such as potency, thermostability, presentation, labelling and shipping conditions.
• The aim is to ensure that vaccines provided through the United Nations for use in national immunization services in different countries are safe, effective and suitable for the target populations at the recommended immunization schedules and with appropriate concomitant products.
• This important work is carried out with the support of international experts in Non-Clinical, Clinical and Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) evaluation of biological medicinal products, specifically vaccines. WHO is making a call to increase the number of consultants/experts available to support this very important public health responsibility.

Deliverables

• Produce timely assessment reports (AR) of the reviewed information.
• Report on critical, major, and other deficiencies detected during the review of the documentation/data (assigned to the consultant)
• Assess the applicant’s responses to queries raised in the AR and decide on the adequacy of each response. Several sets of queries may be necessary.
• Provide WHO with a recommendation and final remarks on the evaluation based on the documentation assigned for review to the consultant. This should be based on the most updated scientific and regulatory grounds.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Educational Qualifications:
Essential:

• Advanced university degree in medicine, biology, pharmacy or microbiology.

Desirable:

• A postgraduate degree in biostatistics.

Experience
Essential:

• Over ten years’ experience in the pharmaceutical field.
• Extensive experience in the area of CMC of vaccines including the understanding of Quality Systems.
• Experience in the regulation, manufacturing and control of vaccines, and ability to work in a complex international environment.
• Experience in monitoring of regulations and regulatory systems of NRAs, including lot release, manufacture and laboratory good practices, laboratory access, post-marketing surveillance (quality aspects) and other activities like writing regulatory procedures.

Desirable:

• Participation in WHO evaluations of NRA and vaccine manufacturers as well as in other WHO activities.

Skills:
Essential:

• Expert must have technical skills and knowledge on the development, strengthening and monitoring of regulatory systems for vaccines, drugs, biologicals, and medical devices.

Desirable:

• Familiarity with WHO prequalification procedure, with WHO activities in strengthening the capacity to regulate clinical trials, vaccines as a biological medical product and /or with the NRA assessment procedure.

Languages required:
Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English.

Remuneration
Band level C: USD 500 – 625 per day.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2025.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online