Niluka Wijekoon
Project Lead Early Warning, Alert & Response Systems (EWARS) , WHO
Dr Niluka Wijekoon is a medical epidemiologist. She works in the Emergencies Programme at WHO headquarters in Geneva, in the Department of Health Emergency Interventions.
Dr Niluka is a technical expert in surveillance, early warning, alert and response in emergency settings. She has started her public health career with the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) as the Emergency Health Coordinator in Sri Lanka, during the ethnic crisis. She has first joined WHO in 2011 as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of WHO’s emergency hub in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. She has been with WHO headquarters since 2014 and has worked in emergencies and outbreaks around the world, including in Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan, Mozambique, Rohingya crisis is Bangladesh, NE Syria, Yemen, DRC, and Indonesia. Dr Niluka also manages WHO’s electronic tool for early warning, alert and response named EWARS-in-a-Box, an innovative solution for outbreak detection in emergency settings.
Before embarking on a public health career, Dr Niluka worked as an emergency physician in both public and private healthcare sectors. She obtained her Master of Public Health from The University of Sheffield, UK and Master of Biostatistics and Epidemiology from French School of Public Health, Paris, France (École des hautes études en santé publique).
Dr Niluka has been a human rights and gender champion from the onset of her career. She is the Gender, Equity and Human Rights (GER) focal person for her department at WHO and an active member of the Gender Working Group (GWG) of Health Emergencies Program. Her extensive work in gender and rights inform equitable policies and interventions in preparedness, response, and recovery from health emergencies.