• Ensuring countries acknowledge O&E by tying declaration of epidemiologic events reported through verifiable sources to immediate financial payouts
• Facilitating better health systems strengthening and preparedness (e.g. through better surveillance mechanisms and incentivized contingency planning)
• Promoting pan-African and sub-regional solidarity and coordination
• Linking the African Union’s and its partners’ investments in the strengthening of health systems, country preparedness and the African Centre for Disease Control into a full ecosystem for pandemic risk management on the continent.
To achieve this, ARC has contracted two firms (Metabiota Inc, and Health Systems Consult Limited) and one consortium (affiliated to Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University) to support the development work through four workstreams;
• Risk profiles and preparedness/capacity assessments of in two countries (Guinea and Uganda);
• Contingency Planning Standards and Guidelines for O&E response in Africa as well as assistance in applying these guidelines to the development of operations plans for two pilot countries; and
• A methodology for modelling and indexing outbreak and epidemic risk that can eventually underpin parametric insurance contracts to ARC Member States.
• Economic and the Cost benefit analysis of the investment in ARC O&E product.
The project, currently in the pilot phase is implemented in three major phases, Table 1. The first phase (2018-19), is intended to develop O&E product tools and templates for production of risk models, disease spark and spread models, index and trigger design, and contingency planning standards & guidelines. Phase II (2020-2021) which will focus heavily on testing the viability, validity, robustness, and sensitivity of the tools and templates will see greater private sector engagement and roles in premium financing and live insurance. In addition to greater private sector engagement, will target more countries from 2 to up to 5. The third phase (2022-23) onwards seeks to scale up the O&E insurance product, in collaboration with strong private sector involvement and offer parametric insurance based on the product to more AU Member States, projected 12-15) in line with ARC Best-Practices. The African Risk Capacity is in the process of developing an additional product outbreaks and epidemics) to offer early and targeted financing to African Union Member Countries for selected disease pathogens (Ebola, Marburg, Lassa Fever and Meningitis). The O&E product is scheduled to be launched by June 2019. The product’s selected diseases affect over forty countries in Africa, of which based on a purely epidemiological analysis, 15 have been identified as most suitable for the product, these are, Benin, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, CAR, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda. Due to ecological, population dynamics, and health systems factors, these countries according to a WHO mapping are among the most prone to frequent public health outbreaks and emergencies of infectious nature.
Problem Statement:
ARC contracted Metabiota Inc, who put together a cross-disciplinary team of epidemiologists, actuaries, and data scientists to create an expansive set of event catalogs that reflects outbreak frequency and severity in Guinea and Uganda. This epidemic risk model incorporates the latest scientific knowledge to assess the risk associated with outbreak events. Analyses conducted based on model results explore the probabilistic variability of key parameters such as geographic site of disease emergence, transmissibility, how travel impacts disease spread, and public health preparedness. The risk management tools are developed from a workflow with three key components:
• derivation of global disease spread models structured upon current epidemiological science and high-performance computing,
• compilation of event catalogs that capture frequency and severity of plausible epidemic scenarios, and
• translation of these data into risk analytics tools.
ARC has received this as a package written in R code, with a user guide for installation. However there is no suitable user interface provided. Running the software therefore requires familiarity with running command line scripts, which is an inconvenience to those without this knowledge. A user-friendly interface is required to be able to run the software commands.
Aim and Scope of Work:
The aim of this assignment is to develop a user interface for the O&E disease Model, which will be used to run the scripts that were developed in R programming language in a user-friendly manner.
The scope of work includes the following:
• the development of a software interface that will allow the ARC O&E staff to run the R scripts provided as part of the O&E disease model;
• Ensuring that the source code is well documented and can be further developed by other developers;
• Preparing a user guide that allows for the understanding and usage of interface developed.
• Demonstrating the use of the interface to staff of ARC.
• Display historic and near-real time data on disease outbreaks and epidemics for covered pathogens
• Display results from model catalogs
• Display subnational and pathogen specific preparedness metrics, capacities, etc
The user-interface can be developed in any suitable language, e.g. Java, C#, Python, etc.
Outputs:
The outsourced consultant(s) must deliver the following;
• An operational user interface for the O&E disease model which can:
1. Display historic and near-real time data on disease outbreaks and epidemics for covered pathogens;
2. Display results from model catalogs;
3. Display subnational and pathogen specific preparedness metrics, capacities, etc
• Report outlined how the interface was developed (including the software architecture)
• User guide for the interface;
• Well documented source code for the software package developed.
• One day training of ARC staff members.
Academic Requirements and Experience:
• BSc / MSc Degree in Computer Science or related or Degree in Biostatistics / Health Statistics or related field with knowledge in developing graphical user interfaces
Desired Skills and Competencies
• 6-10 years of demonstrable experience in developing graphical user interfaces in Python, C# or Java;
• Familiarity with graphical user interface for R programming language and RStudio
• Strong computing skills
• 6-years’ experience in relevant sector.
Languages:
• Good oral and written proficiency in English, French is a plus
Duration:
The contract will run for an initial 3 months, renewable based on additional need.
How to apply:
Interested candidates should send their cv and cover letter to:
robert.agyarko@africanriskcapacity.org and copy henry.bosa@africanriskcapacity.org
Job Email id: robert.agyarko(at)africanriskcapacity.org