Contact Tracer Jobs in Philippines
The Philippines needs one contact tracer per 800 people to keep the spread of Covid-19 in check. As per the statement released by the Department of Health (DOH) on May 26, the country is short of 94000 contact tracers to achieve this goal.
JOB DESCRIPTION
Contact tracing in the Philippines will require the tracers to track and identify individuals who have interacted or come in contact with a person diagnosed with Covid-19.
As per the post dated March 22, possible tasks for volunteers fall into one of these three categories:
Profiler who would undertake the fieldwork for contact tracing
Data Encoder who will work with the DOH Central Office to coordinate the tracing data
Call Centre Staff who will work with the DOH Central Office to undertake contacting the affected people and their likely contacts over the phone
For hiring paid contact tracers, the DOH is likely to issue fresh guidelines soon.
The job responsibilities will most likely include data gathering, interviewing cases and their close contacts to gather travel history and other relevant data, conducting periodic health assessments, advocating public health, and providing health messages.
ELIGIBILITY & REQUIREMENTS
As per the post dated March 22, able and healthy health professionals willing to volunteer as contact tracers for the Department of Health Epidemiology Bureau for contact tracing jobs in Metro Manila could apply.
The volunteer should be willing to work for at least 5 days from 8 AM to 5 PM.
As per the press conference on May 28, the DOH is working with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) fresh guidelines and criteria for local governments to hire the contact tracers in the coming days.
DOH has proposed that anyone who applies should either be an allied medical professional such as a nurse or an undergraduate or graduate of an allied medical course.
Required competencies will also include data gathering skills, the ability to interview cases and their close contacts to gather travel history and other relevant data, conduct periodic health assessments, advocating public health and providing health messages.
Investigative capability and an investigative mindset are likely to be two important criteria to be recruited for contract tracing.
The applicants will also be required to undergo cognitive interviewing skills training and basic investigation training post-hiring.
SALARY
As per DOH's post on March 22, Contract Tracing was a volunteering job.
But as per Health undersecretary Maria Rosario S. Vergeire's press briefing on May 28, people hired as per the new set of qualifications would get a salary as per the grade set by the Civil Service Commission (CSC).
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
How to apply? Volunteers need to sign up
here first and respond to a survey. Then, they must wait for the DOH Epidemiology Bureau to confirm their participation.
Participants looking to enroll in the paid program can check the
DOH's website for vacancies.