Ongoing Recruitment at Catholic Relief Services Zambia

The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Zambia country program was established in 2000, and administers a varied ans diversified portfolio of nutrition, health systems strengthening, food security, economic growth and livelihoods, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) research and HIV and AIDS programs. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. The TB/HIV Technical Advisor (PPTA) for EPIC 3-90 program is based in Lusaka, Zambia. The Epic 3-90 program is funded with funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDSRelief through the Center for Disease Control (CDC), The consortium members, led by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), includes the Churches Health Association of Zambia (CHAZ) and the Chreso Ministries. CRS, as the lead agency for EPIC 3-90 is required to support the programming, planning and core technical assistance aspects of the program as well as to train, advise, and monitor sub-recipients’ use of Federal Awards.

Responsibilities

• The EPIC 3-90 project is an integrated team that brings all the consortium members under one senior management team to improve efficiency and communication
• The TB/HIV Technical Advisor is responsible for providing technical support to supported health facilities.
• She or he reports to the HIV Care and Treatment Senior Technical Advisor
• She or he maintains relationships with project partners and key stakeholders in project clinical implementation
• Contributes to development of annual country operation plan (COP) submission, health facilities system strengthening, strategic plans and reports; develops/utilizes systems to track program clinical quality in collaboration with the Continuous Quality Improvement Advisors
• The primary function of this position is to provide technical support, to supported health facilities, in the area of Tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, to supported health facilities
• This position will support cooperation and communication with all health facilities in the management of the EPIC 3-90 project and other community development activities related to the project
• The Tuberculosis and HIV Technical Advisor (THTA) will primarily be responsible for providing Tuberculosis and HIV co-infection support to all supported health facilities
• She or he will support the HIV Care and Treatment Senior Technical Advisor (CTSTA) in communication with health facilities, development of the Country Operating Plan (COP), planning annual targets and ensuring appropriate use of resources
• The THTA will also assist identify areas of concern within the project and work with the program team to find viable solutions
• She or he sources, supervises and mentors clinical teams
• She or he will work with the M&E team to ensure continuous quality improvement. The position reports directly to the HIV Care and Treatment Senior Technical Advisor (Clinical Lead) and will work closely with the Strategic/M&E team and other clinical staff to ensure quality of services provided health facilities activities
• Provide Pediatric HIV and PMTCT technical support and mentorship to supported sites and district health offices
• Document TB/HIV Co-infection best practices from supported sites and support M&E team in continuous quality improvement
• Attend relevant TB/HIV Co-infection meetings/conferences and share project’s successes around TB/HIV Co-infection activities implementation
• Develop strategies to reach or maintain high rates (100%) of HIV testing among all people with diagnosed and presumptive TB
• Prioritize HIV testing in TB clinics and among persons with presumptive TB and their contacts
• Explore other high yield interventions like offering TB screening and HIV testing to contacts of people with TB and household members of PLHIV
• Develop and implement plans to identify and start all people with TB and testing positive for HIV on ART as soon as possible
• Ensure initiation of ART among all (100%) patients with TB and HIV within 2 to 8 weeks after initiating TB treatment
• Improve timely identification of all estimated PLHIV with TB through improved screening and case detection
• Improved TB case finding and TB treatment completion to ensure viral suppression
• Strengthen systematic screening for active TB/active case finding among PLHIV especially among selected risk groups (such as pregnant women, children, miners, prisoners) and bacteriological confirmed TB contacts
• Support and adopt proven strategies like contact screening and household investigations to reach people with undiagnosed TB and TB/HIV
• Ensure scale-up and optimize Expert MTB/RIF to improve TB case finding among PLHIVs and scale up the use of Expert MTB/RIF by adopting WHO policy to allow testing of all people with symptoms of TB
• Support the use of Expert MTB/RIF as the initial TB diagnostic test for PLHIV where available to improve the number of people diagnosed with bacteriologically-confirmed drug sensitive TB as well as drug resistant TB
• Establish specimen transportation systems from treatment to diagnostic facilities and reference laboratories
• Lead programming for scale up of TB preventive therapy (TPT) for all PLHIV without active TB disease and implementation of TB infection prevention and control interventions
• Scale-up TB preventive therapy for all PLHIVs as an integral part of clinical care package
• Implement TB infection prevention and control activities to minimize the risk of TB transmission
• Lead and support the TB/HIV joint programming and monitoring
• Lead programming to support integrated and effective delivery of TB/HIV services, as integrated TB/HIV service delivery enhances patient-centered care, optimizes outcomes and impacts of PEPFAR’s investments and saves lives
• Support TB/HIV Coordinating bodies strengthening and data review meetings at facility, district and provincial levels
• Improve Linkage to Treatment
• Support the implementation of Community Based ART distribution points and Community Health Worker ART dispensation
• Support monitoring the retention of patients initiated on ART to identify and address losses to follow-up
  Any other duties as assigned by the supervisor
• Internal: Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party (Operations), Health System Strengthening Advisor, Consortium Members (CHAZ and Chreso), Continuous Quality Improvement Advisors (CQIAs), Technical Advisors and Health Facilities
• External: Host country government agencies, international and national non-governmental organizations.

Qualifications

• Have a medical degree, MD preferred, or an advanced degree in a public health or medically related field
• Experience with antiretroviral therapy (ART) and understanding of Zambian ART guidelines
• Experience in HIV and AIDS programming in resource-poor settings at the field level and providing technical assistance to partner organizations
• Excellent analytical skills
• Proficiency in MS Office suite, including Word, Excel, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. SPSS and Epi-info, a plus
• Five years’ relevant post-qualification experience, familiarity with USG procedures
• Good command of spoken and written English
• Self-guided, strong organizational and planning skills
• Ability to work independently and under pressure
• Excellent communication, coaching and facilitation skills

How to apply
Send your detailed curriculum Vitae which must include three references to the undersigned: