Ward Surveillance Officernew

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.

 

WJCF collaborates with a range of international and domestic partners and donors to advance its mission, including an affiliation with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organisation with which WJCF shares a common mission and values.

 

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 Ward Surveillance Officer is the project's on-ground presence in the ward. The role is responsible for supervising field data collection, delivering upskilling sessions to ward health staff, recruiting and orienting community sentinel volunteers, and supporting simulation drills. Ward Surveillance Officer is assigned to three wards and reports to the Surveillance Lead.

Responsibilities

Field Survey & Data Collection

• Supervise enumerators conducting site surveys across three categories: waterborne risk sites, vector-borne risk sites, and surveillance network nodes, across the three ward.
• Ensure daily data submissions from enumerators are complete, GPS-tagged, and accompanied by, Videos, site photographs; flag errors to the Analyst for same-day correction.
• Accompany the drone survey vendor during aerial coverage of the ward; validate field records against drone imagery on the ground.
• Provide ward-level ground truth for the laboratory sample transport chain, identifying actual handover points, travel times, and access constraints the map alone cannot capture.

Community Sentinel Network

• Recruit 15 sentinel volunteers per ward from existing community platforms: Mahila Arogya Samiti (MAS), Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) beneficiary groups, resident welfare associations, and frontline health workers.
• Conduct orientation sessions for volunteers: explain the job aid card, demonstrate the WhatsApp reporting format, and ensure each volunteer can report a health rumour or unusual illness cluster correctly.
• Monitor daily volunteer reports during the two-week Rumour Sentinel Network operational cycle; triage reports and escalate to the Program Officer as per the agreed protocol.

Ward Health Staff Upskilling

• Deliver field-level upskilling sessions to approximately 80 ward health staff, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), Community Health Officers, and Sanitary Inspectors, using modules designed by the Program Officer.
• Support the pre- and post-upskilling assessment administration; submit completed assessment forms to the Program Officer for analysis.

Simulation Drills

• Run the ward-level floor during both simulation drills, managing ward health staff participation, observing response times, and completing the observer checklist.
• Submit post-drill observations to the Program Officer for inclusion in the after-action review.

Coordination & Reporting

• Maintain a daily field log, recording sites visited, enumerator issues, community interactions, and any unusual disease events reported in the ward.
• Attend weekly team check-ins with the Program Officer; flag field blockers early.
• Liaise with the ward Medical Officer-in-Charge, Urban Health Centre (UHC) staff, and AMC Sanitary Inspector to facilitate field access and community entry.

Private Sector Surveillance Reporting

• Visit private clinics, diagnostic laboratories, and pharmacies within the assigned ward on a defined schedule; sensitise providers on Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) Form S/L/P reporting requirements and outbreak alert protocols.
• Track Form S/L/P submission rates from private facilities in the ward; identify non-reporting or irregular-reporting providers and flag to the Program Officer for follow-up Continuing Medical Education (CME) or engagement.
• Maintain a ward-level private provider register — documenting facility name, type, contact, and reporting status — updated monthly.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in public health, life sciences, social work, or a related field.
• 2–4 years of field experience in a public health programme, working with ASHAs, ANMs, or community health platforms in an urban setting.
• Familiarity with the AMC ward health system, knowing how Urban Health Centres, ward Medical Officers, and community health workers operate on the ground.
• Experience supervising field data collection using mobile tools such as ODK (Open Data Kit) or KoBoCollect.
• Fluency in Gujarati; working knowledge of Hindi and English sufficient for reporting.
• Prior experience engaging private healthcare providers, chemists, or diagnostic laboratories in a public health or regulatory context is an advantage.
• Willingness to spend 80–90% of time in the field within the assigned ward.

Preferred

• Prior experience with Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), or AMC health programmes.
• Experience working with community volunteer networks — MAS, JSY groups, or ward-level self-help groups.
• Familiarity with waterborne or vector-borne disease surveillance and seasonal outbreak patterns in Ahmedabad.

Core competencies

• Field Reliability: Shows up, follows the plan, and submits accurate data on time every day.
• Community Trust: Builds rapport quickly with ASHAs, community leaders, and ward residents; understands that access depends on relationships.
• Attention to Detail: identifies incomplete forms, missing GPS tags, and incorrect site records before they reach the Analyst.
• Communication: Explains a job aid card to a volunteer and a field finding to a Medical Officer with equal clarity.
• Initiative: Identifies access barriers and community concerns early
• Provider Engagement: Walks into a private clinic or pharmacy and builds enough rapport for the provider to drive surveillance reporting.

 

Last Date to Apply: 29th July, 2026