For his excellence as an Infectious Disease Specialist in COVID Guidelines, Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Community Service.

Professor Deepthi Jayasekare, M.D., has been Awarded Outstanding Community Service for his dedication to serving in leadership committees and has been championing hospital protocols such as sepsis, pneumonia, Covid-19 vaccines, and treatment protocols for over 20 years. He was chosen to deliver the first-ever educational webinar to the hospital staff on Covid-19 vaccines in November 2020 before the mRNA vaccines were rolled out. In addition, he has positively impacted the Sri Lankan community through outreach by educating people through ongoing webinars and other practical programs.

Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Prof. Jayasekara attended Ananda College, Colombo, from 1970-1982. He was a College Prefect, a member of the Ananda orchestra in vocals and violin, a Boy Scout, and a member of English/Sinhalese debating teams. Having graduated in 1982 with the highest Advanced level results, 4 A’s, he received the prestigious Thomas Amarasuriya Academic Award and a Mahapola Academic Scholarship for medical school.

Prof. Jayasekara graduated from the prestigious Colombo Medical Faculty, the University of Colombo, with honors in Human Physiology and Pharmacology. He subsequently completed his internship at the National Hospital of Colombo in General Medicine and Surgery. Prof. Jayasekara migrated to the USA in 1995 to pursue a postdoc research fellowship in HIV and clinical pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco. While researching and juggling a young family, he applied and was accepted into an Internal Medicine residency at USC-Los Angeles County hospital in 1997. He pursued a fellowship in Infectious Diseases from 2000-2002 and published and conducted research in HIV, Tuberculosis, and CMV retinitis at USC.

Currently, Prof. Jayasekara is a consultant physician and Infectious Disease specialist at Emanate Health hospitals (Queen of the Valley and Inter-community), Arcadia Methodist, San Dimas, and Kindred hospitals. Additionally, he is in a partnership with multiple Infectious Disease doctors with the Foothill Infectious Diseases Group and Infusion Center in Claremont, California. He has cared for over 25,000 patients with COVID-19 per hospital statistics during the 6 waves of the pandemic.

Prof. Jayasekara is currently the chair of Internal Medicine at Emanate hospitals and the chair of Infectious Diseases at Emanate and San Dimas Hospitals. In addition, the Emanate health organization honored him with a Prestigious Award for his work during the pandemic in June 2022. Thus far, Prof. Jayasekara has authored 10 newspaper articles on COVID-19 in Los Angeles, providing much-needed insight into the ongoing COVID policy changes and new therapeutics and vaccines. Also, he continued to be the medical education speaker for the doctors and hospital staff on various subjects related to infectious diseases.

Prof. Jayasekara has delivered over 100 continued medical education (CME) lectures on subjects like Sepsis, COVID-19, New antibiotics in the pipeline, HIV, Diabetic infections, Transplant-related infections, hospital-acquired infections, and more recently Monkeypox 2022 epidemic.

He has published many scientific papers with Universities and Emanate hospitals, especially during COVID. Furthermore, he has delivered many academic lectures at various Sri Lankan organizations in Colombo, Sri Lanka, such as the Sri Lanka Medical Association, College of Physicians, College of Surgeons, College of Microbiologists, Faculty of Kotalawala Medical faculty, and Nawaloka hospital critical care, etc.

He is currently the medical director of the Sri Lanka Foundation International in Los Angeles, USA, and conducted many educational webinars on topics on the Evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID vaccines, new COVID-treatments, CDC protocols, etc. In addition, he spearheaded many charity projects related to the COVID-19 pandemic, helping them purchase equipment, including much-needed ICU beds, Ventilators, BIPAP and High Flow Respiratory Machines, and Surgical consumables.

Sri Lanka Foundation would like to thank and acknowledge Prof. Deepthi Jayasekara, M.D., for applying his knowledge and expertise to work diligently with the public to guide them through pandemics and attempt to find a cure or vaccine.