Our Pioneer

Dr Mahen Wijesuriya’s lived experience as a person living with diabetes and heart disease fueled his passion to work as a volunteer to prevent Diabetes and other related NCDs. As a fellow of both Royal College of Physicians [London] and Ceylon College of Physicians, he pioneered the formation of the Diabetes Association of Sri Lanka in 1984 , established its clinical arm, the National Diabetes Centre in 1995 and the Non Communicable Diseases Alliance in 2016. He works tirelessly to improve lives of persons living [PLWD] with and at risk of Diabetes [P@R] and NCDs [PLWNCDs] and the general public by focusing on prevention through education, increased awareness and screening. He was instrumental in many global, regional and national advocacy efforts namely the global consensus on Aetiology of Type 2 Diabetes in 2002 hosted by DASL in Sri Lanka, the International Diabetes Federation [IDF] United Nations Resolution [UNR] 61/225 – the Implementation strategy for prevention and care of diabetes the “Kathmandu Declaration” in 2008 in Nepal. He was the primary investigator of ‘Diabrisk-sl” which is an accepted, evidence based a translatable low costs, non- pharmacological lifestyle modification prevention tool and the creator of an innovative awareness campaign #1every6seconds which is the basis of the IDF Framework on Sugar 2015.

He was invited to serve on the Board of Management of the IDF by Sir George Alberti who was President in 2000 and continued as a member of the Executive Board till 2009. He was the Chair of the IDF South East Asia Region from 2003-2009.

WHO tasked DASL to form the NCD Alliance Lanka Alliance which is the first Alliance in SEAR and served on the first Board of Directors of the Global NCD Alliance Geneva from 2017-2019. He serves as the Executive Director of the NCDA

His vision is to lead and reorient health services in keeping with health promotion principles.

He is the recipient of many prestigious awards and has authored many chapters and publications.

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