Technical Officer

The World Health Organization has a Roster-Technical Officer (Polio Eradication and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases) post in Cairo, Egypt, at grade P4. The work centers on supporting immunization campaigns, outbreak response and surveillance for polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs).

About the technical officer job in Cairo

This is a one-year fixed-term appointment in the EM/PVD Polio Eradication & Vaccine Preventable Diseases unit, giving specialized technical support to integrated polio eradication, immunization and VPD activities. The programme helps Member States apply the Immunization Agenda 2030 and the applicable Global Polio Eradication Initiative strategies. Travel to field and outbreak locations comes with the post as required, and fixed-term staff in the international professional category can be assigned to any WHO duty station worldwide.

Responsibilities

• Gives Member States and WHO offices technical advice and implementation support covering national immunization strategies, polio emergency action plans, yearly operational plans and VPD prevention through to eradication
• Helps plan, coordinate and monitor routine and supplementary immunization, aiming at coverage gaps among zero-dose, under-immunized, hard-to-reach and emergency-affected groups
• Backs preparedness for and response to importations or outbreaks of wild or vaccine-derived poliovirus and other priority VPDs (measles, rubella, diphtheria, meningitis, yellow fever), and builds up acute flaccid paralysis, environmental and case-based surveillance together with its laboratory networks
• Compiles, validates and analyses epidemiological, immunization, vaccine-stock and performance data, runs risk assessments, keeps dashboards and scorecards, and recommends fixes to countries and partners
• Supports workplans and budgets, forecasting and allocation of vaccines and supplies, cold-chain planning, grant implementation and technical and donor reporting as needed
• Writes and adapts guidance, standard operating procedures, training materials and monitoring tools, then delivers capacity-building and follow-up coaching to national and subnational staff and partners
• Contributes to programme reviews, evaluations and operational research, and promotes folding polio assets and functions into routine immunization, primary health care and health-emergency preparedness
• Liaises with WHO teams at headquarters, regional and country level and with governments, GPEI, UN agencies, donors and development partners, and represents WHO in technical meetings, missions and workshops as assigned

Requirements

• Master’s degree in public health or epidemiology, or in immunization, vaccinology, health sciences, communicable disease control, global health, international development or another directly relevant field
• Four or more of those years spent on disease eradication, immunization, VPD surveillance or control, or infectious-disease prevention and control, in progressively responsible professional roles
• A record of backing national or subnational programmes, working through programme and surveillance data, and putting technical guidance into practice
• Exposure to international work, either in a multicultural team setting or on projects spanning different geographical or cultural contexts
• Solid technical grounding in public health and epidemiology, immunization systems, vaccine science, polio eradication, VPD surveillance and outbreak response, along with relevant WHO policies
• Skills in project management, technical writing, facilitation, presentation and capacity building, and the ability to work with governments, communities and national and international partners in multicultural, developing-country, fragile or emergency environments
• Excellent English, comfort with everyday office, presentation and collaboration software, and practical use of data-analysis, visualization and geographic information tools
• Commitment to WHO values, vaccination as WHO requires (unless a medical condition prevents it) and no use of tobacco in any form

Preferred qualifications

• A first degree in medicine or a related health science
• Professional training in field epidemiology, polio eradication or immunization programme management, VPD surveillance or outbreak response, or biostatistics, data analysis and project management
• Significant work in polio eradication or large-scale immunization programmes
• Experience gained outside the candidate’s home country, or with WHO, another UN organization, an international NGO, GPEI or immunization partners
• Work in developing-country, fragile, conflict-affected, humanitarian or outbreak settings
• Intermediate French and/or Arabic
• Familiarity with Epi Info, R, Python, GIS, DHIS2 or equivalent platforms

Benefits

• Variable post adjustment reflecting the cost of living, currently USD 2072 per month for this duty station
• 30 days of annual leave
• Allowances for dependent family members
• Home leave
• Education grant for dependent children
• Parental leave and flexible work arrangements
• Base salary quoted before the mandatory pension and health-insurance deductions that apply

How to apply

Screening may include a written test or an asynchronous video assessment, and only candidates under serious consideration are contacted. Anyone invited to interview sends scanned degrees or certificates beforehand, and WHO accepts higher education qualifications only from institutions that appear as accredited or recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED). The ad notes that the same notice may serve for other, similar posts at this grade, that staff separated under the 2025 Prioritization and Realignment Process get special consideration, and that the cut-off time shown depends on the applicant’s own device settings. Applications are made through the listing on WHO’s careers site: apply using the button below.