Field Assistant at Malaria Consortium

Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in the comprehensive prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable and under privileged populations. We increasingly find our work on malaria can be effectively integrated with other similar public health interventions for greater impact and therefore expanded our remit to include child health and neglected tropical disease interventions.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Field Assistant

Location: Osun
Employment Type: Contract

Purpose of the assignment

• Conduct case-control study for the PMC Effect Study in Osun state. The cases are children with symptomatic or clinical malaria, they have been brought to the clinic because of an illness, they have a history of fever, and have tested positive for P.falciparum.
• The case-control study is designed to estimate the efficacy of SP in preventing clinical malaria. We will record the dates of the SP treatments the case children received. Each case child is matched to two control children.

Scope of Work

• The Field Assistant will lead in the identification of children with confirmed malaria at the assigned health facility, in the age range (2 – 20 months) eligible for PMC and eligible to be recruited as cases.
• Field assistants will also support confirmation of cases using an LDH-based rapid test. Rapid tests that detect HRP2 protein are not suitable for this purpose because the timing of when the case of malaria occurred is critical and HRP2 remains detectable weeks after an episode of malaria.
• It may be possible to use rapid tests that detect parasite lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) (e.g. Optimal manufactured by Flow, USA).
• Children are eligible as controls even if they are unwell and/or have malaria infection (this means that a diagnostic test does not need to be done for any of the controls). Two controls for each case should be selected, from two different households. Controls should be closely matched to cases on date of birth, born within 1 month before or after the date of birth of the case.
• Cases should be visited at home the same day they were seen at the clinic or within seven days, to check details about any SP treatments they have received, if any, including the dates of all of the treatments, details of all vaccinations, and to ask about the child’s use of bednets and some general questions about the household’s access to health care.
• Then the field assistant should recruit control children, living in the same neighbourhood but not in the immediate vicinity of the case child’s home, by moving away from the case child’s house (separated by a distance of about 100m, in any direction or third house from the case’ house), and then from that start point going house to house after to collect the corresponding information in exactly the same way as for the cases.

Expert Profile

• The Field Assistant will have a minimum of Diploma in a Health-Related course with experience in health services provision.

Specific Tasks

• Receive briefing from Malaria Consortium team on the assignment
• Recruit and interview cases. Potential cases are children aged 2-20 months, presenting with fever, or history of fever in the last 48 hours and who therefore require a malaria test.
• Cases must be patients who are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who is able to give consent. Please aim to recruit cases at approximately the same rate (cases/week) uniformly throughout the study. The number of cases/controls to be recruited will be distributed evenly throughout the periods per week/month.
• Identify the controls from the neighbourhood where the cases reside and interview the controls.
• Liaise with clinic staff in the study areas to ensure dates of SP doses are carefully recorded on child record cards and in a clinic NHMIS register.
• Sensitise communities about the aims and procedures of the case-control study.
• Ensure quality control procedures for LDH-based RDTs to be used.
• Follow up with medical record officers to ensure that the dates of all PMC treatments among the case and the control children are accurately documented.
• The field assistant will have to clarify with the record officer to ensure that the data are well documented before extracting and sending to the electronic database using the data collection tool.
• Copy dates from the child’s home-based record, and cross-checked in the clinic NHMIS register, and the caregiver should be asked about when the child received SP.
• Respond to related queries and data needs and requests from the project’s technical team and key sub-national partners, SMEP and SPHCDA.

Personnel Specifications
Essential:

• Interested candidates should possess a Bachelor's Degree with at least 2 years experience.
• Resident in Osun state
• Registered nurse/midwife, hold diploma or degree in health-related sciences, or equivalent subject- matter experience
• Significant experience in blood sample collection and interviews, including the use of ODK to capture data
• Familiarity with primary health care setting
• Familiarity with community-based study, in particular in the context of South West Nigeria
• Excellent communication skills
• Fluent in Yoruba language

Desirable:

• Experience of collaborating with government institutions and non-governmental organisations or academic institutions
• Experience in translating Yoruba Language into English Language that is understood by diverse audiences

Preferable:

• People living in the following Local Government Areas and Wards are encouraged to apply: Ede South (BABANLA/AGATE), Ife North (EDUNABON I) and Egbedore (IRAGBERI I and EKURO/IDOO)

Application Closing Date
13th May, 2024 (8:00 AM)

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note

• Kindly note that applicants who do not follow this specification will be disqualified.
• Only Shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
• Kindly note that applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and as a result, the application process may conclude before the advertised deadline. Therefore, early applications are highly encouraged.
• Malaria Consortium does not accept or ask for payment during recruitment. We also would not accept hardcopy CVs; all applications should be sent through the above link.