The Zambia National Public Health Institute (ZNPHI), under the Ministry of Health, serves as the national focal point for public health security, coordinating surveillance, preparedness, and response to health threats. Within ZNPHI, the Department of Surveillance and Disease Intelligence (DSDI) provides technical leadership for implementing the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy, event-based surveillance, and related systems that support the timely detection, reporting, and control of priority diseases, conditions, and events.
To strengthen the country’s capacity to implement the International Health Regulations (IHR), the Ministry of Health, through ZNPHI, has partnered with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) via the UK International Health Regulations Strengthening Project (IHR-SP). Building on this collaboration, UKHSA will provide in-country technical assistance to support the Government of Zambia in strengthening national and subnational surveillance and epidemiology capabilities, aligned with IHR (2005) and Zambia’s multi-hazard, One Health health-security priorities.
The post-holder will work closely with the ZNPHI Surveillance and Disease Intelligence Directorate and, through the National Surveillance Technical Working Group, coordinate across other ZNPHI pillars, including Laboratory, Emergency Preparedness & Response (EPR), Strategic Planning & Information Management (SPIM), One Health (OH), and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). The role will also support effective collaboration with the Ministry of Health, provincial health offices, multisectoral partners, and digital and laboratory stakeholders.
The post-holder will:
- Strengthen epidemiological and surveillance systems across all levels.
- Enhance digital surveillance, laboratory–surveillance linkages, outbreak analytics, and data use.
- Build sustainable workforce capacity within ZNPHI and the Ministry of Health.
- Support Zambia’s engagement with regional health bodies (Africa CDC, WHO AFRO), cross-border networks, and One Health stakeholders.
This role contributes to Zambia’s long-term goal of developing a resilient, integrated surveillance system and a strong, evidence-driven public health architecture.
Strengthening national and subnational surveillance systems
- Develop and deliver tailored capacity-building activities to enhance ZNPHI’s epidemiology and surveillance functions.
- Support ZNPHI and MoH in identifying surveillance gaps and designing surveillance system specifications.
- Strengthen surveillance systems at provincial and district level, supporting improved timeliness, completeness, data quality, and event detection, verification and risk assessment.
- Support surveillance system enhancement across all ZNPHI directorates (Surveillance, Labs, EPR, SPIM, OH, AMR).
- Strengthen Surveillance Epi-bulletin, Sitreps. Infographics and Spotreps development and dissemination.
- Support key surveillance programmes including Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR), indicator-based surveillance, event-based surveillance, mortality surveillance, sentinel surveillance, wastewater surveillance, and surveillance of neglected tropical diseases, non-communicable diseases and vaccine preventable diseases.
Digital systems, data integration & analytics.
- Support the implementation and optimisation of digital surveillance platforms, including DHIS2, eIDSR, WHONET, event-based surveillance tools, ZEBRA and dashboards.
- Strengthen laboratory information systems (LIMS) and lab–surveillance data linkages.
- Coordinate with digital health and IT teams at ZNPHI and MoH to improve data pipelines, indicator sets, data flow, and visualisation.
- Provide high-level technical advice on epidemiological methods, outbreak analytics, and interpretation of complex datasets.
- Provide advice on analytical study design, protocol development, and appropriate methodological approaches.
Emergency preparedness and response, and One Health collaboration.
- Support ZNPHI and MoH to build robust outbreak investigation and response systems, providing analytical expertise, data interpretation support, and guidance on high-quality reporting.
- Strengthen multisectoral collaboration with stakeholders working in animal health, environmental health, food safety, water and sanitation, and chemical hazards.
- Support Zambia’s participation in cross-border and regional surveillance networks, including Africa CDC Southern RCC and WHO AFRO mechanisms.
- Promote One Health approaches in surveillance and preparedness activities.
- Monitoring, evaluation and governance.
- Evaluate existing surveillance systems, outbreak responses, and reporting pathways, identifying opportunities for improvement.
- Contribute to monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) activities for surveillance, IDSR, digital platforms, and One Health workstreams.
- Promote adherence to information governance, data protection, and ethical standards.
- Contribute to technical reports, guidelines, publications, and policy documents.
Workforce development and training.
- Assess training needs across ZNPHI, MoH, and provincial health teams.
- Develop structured training materials, curricula, short courses, and mentoring programmes.
- Support the Zambia Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP), including contributing to teaching, mentoring and field projects.
- Facilitate workshops, training sessions, simulation exercises and peer-learning activities.
- Stakeholder engagement and partnership management
- Maintain strong working relationships with ZNPHI directorates and pillars (Surveillance, WFD, Labs, EPR, SPIM, OH, AMR).
- Collaborate with MoH departments and provincial and district health offices.
- Engage with national stakeholders involved in environmental health, water/sanitation, zoonoses, chemicals, AMR, laboratory systems and emergency preparedness.
- Work closely with Africa CDC, WHO, US CDC, UN agencies, implementing partners and other health-security stakeholders.
- Support the coordination and functioning of Technical Working Groups related to surveillance, digital health, laboratory systems and One Health.
Project leadership and delivery
- Provide project management oversight of surveillance and epidemiological workstreams, ensuring timely delivery against agreed outputs.
- Contribute to overall IHR-SP programme planning, reporting and documentation.
- Support other UKHSA team members and cross-cutting activities as required.
Essential qualifications, skills and experience
- Postgraduate qualification in epidemiology, public health, biostatistics or a related field
- Extensive experience working in surveillance, epidemiology, outbreak response, or health protection in Zambia or the wider Africa region
- Strong understanding of Zambia’s public health system and ZNPHI’s mandate
- In-depth knowledge of IDSR and surveillance strengthening approaches
- Experience working with senior government stakeholders (MoH, ZNPHI, provincial offices, multisectoral partners)
- Demonstrated ability to work in multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multi-agency environments
- Experience implementing or supporting digital surveillance tools (DHIS2, eIDSR, LIMS, etc.)
- Experience supporting or conducting outbreak investigations and analytical epidemiology
- Experience producing technical reports, guidelines, or evidence-informed recommendations
- Commitment to ethical standards, confidentiality, and information governance
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills
- Ability to navigate sensitive political and governance environments with diplomacy
- Proficiency in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook; comfort working with data
- Demonstrated commitment to CPD and continuous learning
- Ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and deliver results
Desirable qualifications, skills and experience
- Advanced field epidemiology qualification (e.g., FETP)
- Experience with laboratory surveillance, LIMS, AMR surveillance
- Experience analysing complex datasets using R, Stata, Epi Info, or Python
- Experience designing or implementing digital surveillance architecture
- Experience developing surveillance teaching materials or curricula
- Experience conducting evaluations, or MEL activities
- Experience writing scientific publications, presenting at conferences, or contributing to research
- Experience mentoring junior epidemiologists or data scientists
- Familiarity with One Health, environmental surveillance, and chemical hazards
Reports are reviewed manually. No action is taken automatically.
