Public Health Specialist, Surveillance and Disease Intelligence

About the role

Three-year fixed-term Public Health Specialist position at Africa CDC headquarters in Addis Ababa, within the Surveillance and Disease Intelligence Division. Africa CDC is the AU’s continental public health agency, established after the 2014 Ebola outbreak to strengthen Africa’s public health emergency response. The Specialist supports continental surveillance systems and outbreak intelligence across the 55 African Union Member States. Application deadline 25 July 2026.

Responsibilities

• Maintain the Africa CDC Event-Based Surveillance system and feed it into the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC).
• Analyse continental epidemic intelligence data and produce weekly outbreak briefings.
• Coordinate with African Union Member States’ Ministries of Health on early-warning data sharing.
• Lead one or more disease-specific surveillance workstreams (mpox, Ebola, cholera, antimicrobial resistance, or another priority).
• Travel to Member States for surveillance system assessments and training (up to 35 percent of working time).
• Co-author Africa CDC’s flagship Weekly Event-Based Surveillance Report.

Requirements

• Master’s degree (or higher) in epidemiology, public health, biostatistics, applied mathematics, or a closely related field.
• Three to five years of professional experience in disease surveillance, applied epidemiology, or public health intelligence.
• Strong analytical skills with hands-on R, Python, or Stata.
• Experience with at least one geographic information system (GIS) tool.
• Fluent English. Working French is required for francophone Africa portfolios; Arabic or Portuguese welcomed.
• Citizen of an African Union Member State.
• Demonstrated experience working with national or regional surveillance data.

Nice to have

• PhD in epidemiology or a quantitative public health discipline.
• Prior Africa CDC, WHO, or major epidemiology programme experience (US CDC EIS, FELTP graduates welcomed).
• Publications in peer-reviewed surveillance or outbreak-response journals.
• Familiarity with the International Health Regulations (2005) framework.

How to apply

Open Africa CDC’s careers page at the apply link, search for “Public Health Specialist Surveillance”, and submit through the Africa CDC recruitment system. Submit CV, motivation letter, three references, and copies of relevant academic certificates. Closing date 25 July 2026 at 23:59 East Africa Time.