Countries

Alfred Okiria

Project director, South Sudan

Dr. Okiria is the project director for Strengthening National Capacity for Integrated HIV/AIDS Health Data Collection, Use, and Dissemination in Support of an Evidence-based Response in South Sudan.

He has 17 years of experience working with community programs, governments, nonprofits, and other institutions on health care delivery; maternal, child, sexual and reproductive health; family planning; health systems strengthening; strategic information including monitoring and evaluation; surveillance; surveys; and research.

Previously, he worked in remote post-conflict districts in central Uganda creating and scaling up HIV/AIDS and family planning programs. He helped establish a center of excellence for HIV service delivery and worked with a wide range of HIV implementing partners and the Ministry of Health to set up robust HIV monitoring and evaluation systems, HIV surveillance and surveys, and a prevention of mother-to-child transmission program with Protecting Families Against HIV/AIDS (PREFA).

Since 2012, Dr. Okiria has been working for IntraHealth International in South Sudan and is focusing on health system strengthening by supporting the South Sudan Ministry of Health strengthen strategic information at national, state, and county health departments; improve monitoring and evaluation and surveillance systems; and build data collection, analysis, and reporting including use for decision-making at national, state, and county level as well as some select facilities.

He led the implementation of the District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) in South Sudan and ensured the system was rolled out in the entire country as a national reporting system for all Health Management Information System (HMIS) data. Now, South Sudan’s HIV data reporting both at a national and global level and key population reporting is available.

VITAL

For Stronger HIV Services in South Sudan, This Team Looks to the Data

How digital health and data collection are improving health care in the country, despite the many challenges.