Pushpa Ranjan wijesinghe

Biography

Dr Pushpa Ranjan Wijesinghe is a board-certified consultant in community medicine who worked as a consultant Epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health Sri Lanka prior to his retirement from the public service in sri Lanka . He currently serves as the Program Area Manager for Infectious Hazard Management at the WHO’s Health Emergency Programme at SEARO. Under the emergency response framework of WHO , he leads the Health Operations Pillar and is also the alternate Incident Manager in WHO SEARO’s COVID 19 response . Dr Wijesinghe is a medical graduate from the former USSR, completed his doctorate and Masters Community Medicine from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine ,university of Colombo and did his post-doctoral training at the Medical/Pharmacy schools of the University of Otago in New Zealand. Additionally, Dr Wijesinghe has a master’s in public health (MPH) i in epidemiology and bio security from the Massey University of New Zealand. Dr Wijesinghe has worked on new and underutilized vaccine introductions, new vaccine related disease surveilance and evidence generation, Immunization System Strengthening in SEAR Member States and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework . In his current position, Dr Wijesinghe is responsible for coordinating preparedness, response and networking for risk profiling/risk mapping, risk assessment, risk mitigation, risk prevention in terms of high threat pathogens in the context of resilient health systems for national and regional health security in WHO’s South East Asia Region.