Roster of consultants: supporting the digital transformation of national ESAVI surveillance systems and expanding the regional vaccine safety system in the Americas

OBJECTIVE OF THE OFFICE/DEPARTMENT

This is a requisition for employment at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO)

Contractual Agreement:

Non-Staff - International PAHO Consultant

Job Posting:

July 31, 2025

Closing Date:

August 15, 2025, 11:59 PM Eastern Time

Primary Location:

Off Site

Organization:

CIM Comprehensive Immunizations

Schedule:

Full time

PURPOSE OF CONSULTANCY

This requisition is for a consultancy at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Provide a short description of the objective of the office/department here.
• Provide a description of the purpose of the consultancy here.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES:

“Include summary of terms of reference (ToRs) and attach full description of ToRs”

Purpose of consultancy:

This consultancy seeks to maintain and advance critical activities aimed at the digital transformation of ESAVI surveillance systems at the regional and national level. It seeks to increase the efficiency of the surveillance systems and to reduce the workload of all the health care workers in charge of the processes intended to generate information on the safety of vaccines.

Background:

The Pan American Health Organization has made great strides in supporting the countries of the region in strengthening surveillance systems of Events Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI). In each country of the region, the implementation of activities has been developed in four strategic lines of action that include: 1. Strengthening monitoring and response to ESAVI, 2. Strengthening of national capacities, 3. Digital transformation of ESAVI surveillance and 4. Active surveillance.

At the close of the pandemic, efforts have naturally been redirected and interest in vaccine/vaccination safety issues has decreased, but systems still require a sustained effort to overcome existing gaps. It is for this reason that the CIM/vaccine safety team requires the continuity of technical cooperation activities with the countries, to achieve the objective in the different lines and to have mature and stable systems, with the capacity to timely generate information on vaccine safety.

New safety challenges have emerged, such as unprecedented dengue incidence rates in several countries, the emergence of yellow fever outbreaks, and the risks of H5N1 influenza transmission to humans; challenges that require the intervention of the population with new recommendations of known vaccines or the introduction of new vaccines. The questions generated by the development of new technologies for the active ingredients of the vaccine, the innovation in delivery mechanisms and the developments required by the new challenges of new pathogens that threaten public health and that can have an epidemic behavior, impose challenges that require evidence/information on safety, mostly when those technologies are massively used for the response.

To be able to efficiently generate the information required for the monitoring of the safety of vaccines and to facilitate the interaction between different responsible institutions from the national to the global level, it is of paramount importance the development and implementation of digital tools. Along the work of ESAVI surveillance experts, PAHO provide support to countries on the development of solutions to solve the problems on the management of information of the safety of the vaccines and to facilitate communication between stakeholders.

Deliverables:

Responsibilities:

The selected consultants will have the following responsibilities:

Infrastructure Management & Support

Manage and maintain the technological server infrastructure for the PAHO Regional Vaccine Safety System (SMART-ESAVI). This includes Azure cloud hosting services for DHIS2, FHIR, the regional database, and other necessary systems, as well as providing support for potential migrations (e.g., PAHO Tenant, WHDH). Update essential technical documentation for the PAHO Regional Vaccine Safety System (SMART-ESAVI). This encompasses implementation, support, and maintenance of the regional database, ETL processes, HAPI FHIR server, terminology server, Azure hosting for all solutions, and organizational architecture. Documentation types include, but are not limited to, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), flowcharts, use cases, ETL mapping documents, ETL workflow diagrams, a technical implementation manual for PAHO, a customized user manual for PAHO and countries, and any other required documents. Monitor the performance of deployed systems (FHIR server, DHIS2, ETL) using mon