Surveillance Lead

Overview

WJCF is an Indian non-profit organisation committed to saving lives by reducing the burden of disease and strengthening government-owned, high-quality health systems. Since 2007, WJCF has combined data-driven approaches and deep public health expertise with strong government partnerships to design, implement, and scale solutions across India’s national and state health programmes. We work for and at the service of governments — supporting the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and State Departments of Health to build systems that are strong, sustainable, and led by Indian institutions.

As an Indian organisation, WJCF brings an unmatched depth of contextual understanding of India’s health system architecture, policy landscape, and implementation realities across diverse geographies and population groups. This local institutional credibility, combined with global technical rigour, is central to WJCF’s effectiveness as a partner to governments and donors.

Our work is built around four complementary roles: as a Trusted Government Partner, co-designing programmes and strengthening health system architecture; as an Operational Partner, translating strategies into effective on-the-ground delivery; as a Market Shaper, improving the availability and affordability of health commodities; and as an Ecosystem Catalyst, convening governments, development partners, academia, and the private sector to drive solutions at scale.

WJCF’s programme portfolio spans thematic areas like hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, vector-borne diseases, syphilis, cervical cancer, diabetes, maternal and childhood anaemia, immunisation, under-5 diarrhoea and pneumonia, sexual and reproductive health, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), hypoxemia and oxygen, safe drinking water, sickle cell disease, presbyopia, lead poisoning, and cross cutting thematic areas like AI and Health, integrated disease surveillance and climate and health.

We currently support programmes across 19 states and union territories, with teams working at national, state, district, and sub-district levels.

Our people are our greatest asset. WJCF brings together a talented, diverse team of professionals from public health, analytics, consulting, healthcare, the development sector, and academia, all united by a shared commitment to improving health outcomes for the people of India. We are entrepreneurial, action-oriented, and deeply grounded in the communities and systems we work in. Our field teams collectively bring hundreds of years of experience managing public health programmes across the country.

Program Overview

The World Health Organization estimated that 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) in 2022 and ~1.3 million succumbed to it. India accounted for the most people suffering from the disease, with 27% of the cases and 26% of mortality. The National TB Elimination Program (NTEP), headed by the Central TB Division (CTD), MoHFW, is an expansive public health program with the ambitious goal of eliminating TB in line with the mandate of the Sustainable Development Goals.

WJCF has been supporting the CTD and state health departments of more than 15 states in the mission to eliminate TB. WJCF’s TB program has been operational since 2012, and its interventions address several program areas, including preventive therapies, case detection, access to diagnostics, engagement of the private sector, and more. It also lends technical support to Governments across a range of themes- strategic planning, data analytics, monitoring and evaluation, patient management and delivery of services.

WJCF’s current portfolio of work spans support includes an evaluation of the TB drugs demand and supply dynamics, a landscape assessment for the next generation of diagnostic methods, a high-powered multi-disciplinary team translating programmatic information into action, and multiple large-scale interventions to determine the best methods for detecting hidden TB in the community.

Project Background India’s rapidly urbanising cities — home to over 500 million people and growing — face a recurring burden of vector-borne and water-borne diseases, with dengue, malaria, cholera, and typhoid remaining endemic in informal settlements where drainage, waste management, and water supply remain inadequate. Indian cities exemplify these pressures, with seasonal disease surges recurring each year across wards and peri-urban areas.

Despite sustained investment in surveillance infrastructure through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP), and the Metropolitan Surveillance Unit (MSU) network, a persistent gap remains between data collection and public health action. Peri-urban settlements straddling municipal and district boundaries frequently fall outside the active surveillance catchment of both, and when outbreaks emerge, response teams act without a shared, evidence-based picture of where risk is concentrated.

To address this, WJCF is implementing a 10-month Health Commitment Grant titled "Strengthening the Urban Ecosystem Against Future Disease Threats" under the Tuberculosis Implementation Framework Agreement (TIFA), funded by JSI Research and Training Institute and anchored by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), across five high-risk cities including Ahmedabad. The project converts fragmented environmental, epidemiological, and administrative data into spatially indexed intelligence that ward officers, MSU epidemiologists, and District Surveillance Unit (DSU) teams can directly act on.

In Ahmedabad, across three priority wards, this means a Ward-Level Risk Atlas, an early warning dashboard connecting surveillance data systems with laboratory and supply chain data, targeted upskilling with measurable impact on reporting compliance, and commodity gap mapping against the 72-hour outbreak response minimum, all submitted to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and NCDC as a Surveillance-to-Action blueprint designed for replication.

Position Summary

The Surveillance Lead is the on-ground project lead for Ahmedabad, carrying full accountability for the Urban Disease Surveillance programme. The role is the primary interface between WJCF and government counterparts, principally, the State Surveillance Unit, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), Metropolitan Surveillance unit (MSU), District Surveillance unit (DSU), and associated departments. The Surveillance Lead is responsible for ensuring that every government engagement, technical output, and milestone is delivered on time and to standard.

The Surveillance Lead works within and alongside government systems and not parallel to them. The role chairs key meetings, facilitates simulation drills, leads upskilling, and maintains trusted relationships with senior officials throughout the project. Internally, the role manages the Ahmedabad team: the Program Officer, the Analyst, and Ward Surveillance Officers.

The role calls for physician-level clinical insight combined with public health programme management experience. The Surveillance Lead reports to the Associate Director and leads programme design, implementation, donor reporting, and milestone documentation.

Responsibilities

• Government Stakeholder Engagement & Coordination

Working within existing government systems to strengthen the program.

• Lead engagement with the State Surveillance Unit, AMC Health Department, District Surveillance Unit, and AMC allied departments (Water and Sanitation, Entomology, Social Development) and coordinate within existing structures.
• Lead coordination with Smart City Ahmedabad Development Limited (SCADL) for Geographic Information System (GIS) integration and Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) health communication protocol, in consultation with AMC Health Department.
• Facilitate engagement with Smt. NHL Municipal Medical College, BJ Medical College, and GMERS Medical College Sola for laboratory chain mapping and IDSP referral pathway confirmation, in coordination with the DSU.
• Lead Continuing Medical Education (CME) and other in-clinic engagement sessions with private sector providers, laboratories and pharmacies on IHIP reporting, Form S/L/P compliance, and outbreak alert protocols, in coordination with AMC.
• Conduct a situational analysis of the existing urban surveillance system across three wards, assessing surveillance coverage, IHIP reporting timeliness and completeness, data quality gaps, laboratory linkages, and peri-urban jurisdictional ambiguities to establish the evidence base for all subsequent deliverables.
• Ward Action Plan Development & Ratification

The Ward Action Plan translates Risk Atlas findings into a government-owned response framework.

• Lead preparatory discussions with the AMC Additional Commissioner and Officer In charge Metropolitan Surveillance Unit (OIC-MSU) to build consensus on the Ward Action Plan scope before the multi-stakeholder review.
• Facilitate the multi-stakeholder Ward Action Plan joint review chaired by the Additional Commissioner, coordinating inputs from OIC-MSU, DSO, City Engineer (Water), AMC Entomologist, Deputy Commissioner (Social Development), and SCADL.
• Ensure SOPs, escalation matrices, and inter-departmental trigger frameworks developed by the Program Officer are reviewed, ratified, and embedded within existing AMC governance structures.
• Ensure the Ward Action Plan drives data actionability that surveillance outputs translate into weekly response planning, early warning triggers, and field action at ward level
• Support sign-off from AMC Commissioner's Office and District Magistrate; facilitate the first quarterly inter-departmental coordination meeting.
• Risk Atlas Oversight & Government Validation

The Surveillance Lead validates the approach and analytical framework for Risk Atlas development.

• Review and sign off on the data collection protocol, risk scoring framework, and ward map methodology before field deployment begins.
• Oversee the field enumeration phase, providing escalation support to the Analyst and Ward Surveillance Officers. Lead vendor engagement, government clearances, and contractual accountability for the third-party drone survey agency.
• Lead government review sessions with the Chief Health Officer, DSO, Zone Medical Officers, and AMC departments for validation and approval of draft ward maps.
• Lead the formal submission of the Ward-Level Risk Atlas to AMC and NCDC, packaged for government adoption and replication.
• Workforce Upskilling & Simulation Drills

The Surveillance Lead owns the senior government relationships that make upskilling and drill participation possible.

• Lead mid and senior-level upskilling for DSU Medical Officers, Zone Medical Officers, and DSO on outbreak investigation, inter-departmental triggers, and IDSP case definitions, in coordination with the District Health Society.
• Oversee field-level upskilling of approximately 240 ward health staff, delivered by Ward Surveillance Officers and the Program Officer.
• Design and facilitate pathogen-specific simulation drills testing the detection-to-response chain with MSU and DSU; lead post-drill reviews to identify bottlenecks.
• Review post-upskilling compliance findings from the Analyst and present recommended actions to government counterparts.
• Supply Chain, Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) & Laboratory EngagementEnsuring the system can respond, not just detect- commodities, communication, and laboratory linkages are the operational backbone of the Ward Action Plan.
• Lead stockpile assessments at AMC Medical Stores, MSU Public Health Surveillance and Response Centre (PHSRC), and ward Urban Health Centres (UHCs) for Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), water testing kits, and Dengue NS1 and Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs), in coordination with the Program Officer and Analyst.
• Lead coordination with the AMC Media Cell and SCADL Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) to establish a health communication protocol and operationalise the ward-level Rumour Sentinel Network, with handover to AMC at close.
• Oversee mapping of laboratory sample collection, transport, and reporting pathways, and confirm IDSP referral linkages with partner medical colleges.
• Programme Management & Donor ReportingThe Surveillance Lead is accountable to two audiences for government engagement and donor reporting.
• Lead monthly review meetings with government counterparts at State, AMC, DSU, and MSU levels; participate in internal reviews with WJCF senior management.
• Prepare and submit monthly and quarterly donor progress reports to JSI/TIFA; ensure milestone evidence, government approvals, training records, drill documentation, Risk Atlas outputs, is compiled and submitted on schedule.
• Maintain a live milestone tracker; flag risks proactively to the WJCF senior management.
• Lead project close-out, including government handover packages, Risk Atlas and Ward Action Plan submissions to the AMC Commissioner's Office, and the formal close-out event.

Qualifications

Required

• MBBS from a recognised institution; postgraduate qualification in public health, community medicine, or epidemiology (Doctor of Medicine (MD), Master of Public Health (MPH), or equivalent) strongly preferred.
• 5–7 years in public health programme implementation, with experience in disease surveillance or urban health and at least two years of direct engagement with government health systems at district or municipal level.
• Demonstrated ability to work alongside government systems, supporting institutional processes such as joint reviews, inter-departmental coordination, and policy sign-offs without displacing government ownership.
• Experience facilitating upskilling programmes and simulation drills for government health workforces.
• Working knowledge of IDSP, IHIP reporting, and outbreak investigation protocols.
• Strong communication in English and Gujarati or Hindi.
• Willingness to spend approximately 60% of time in the field across government offices, wards, and medical colleges.

Preferred

• Prior experience with NCDC, IDSP surveillance units, or National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) urban health programmes.
• Familiarity with Smart City infrastructure or GIS-based surveillance tools.
• Prior experience in urban disease surveillance, outbreak response, or epidemic preparedness programmes
• Exposure to National Health Mission (NHM) financial and planning guidelines, including the Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) process.
• Working knowledge of AI productivity tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot for report drafting and data synthesis.

Core competencies

• Government Credibility: Has Technical competencies and knows how to work within the system, not around it.
• Institutional Navigation: Moves multi-stakeholder processes forward, joint reviews, signoffs, inter-departmental coordination, while keeping government ownership intact.
• Clinical/Public Health grounding: Brings physician-level insight to surveillance discussions; engages medical college faculty and private providers on clinical aspect.
• Team Leadership: Manages the Program Officer, Analyst, and Ward Surveillance Officers to a high standard; creates conditions for the team to deliver without micromanaging.
• Communication: Crisp briefings for senior officials; clear instructions for field teams.
• Accountability: Owns milestone delivery; flags risks early rather than waiting for problems to escalate.
• Adaptability: Maintains programme momentum when government timelines shift; adjusts approach without losing the thread.

Last Date to Apply: 29th July, 2026