Jung Eun-kyeong (55, pictured), the director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) who has led South Korea’s efforts to contain COVID-19 has been nominated as the first chief of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Administration, an upgraded organization of the KCDC scheduled to launch on September 12.

On September 8, the government upgraded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Disease Control and Prevention Administration and announced that they would appoint another vice minister to oversee health at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Administration will be composed of 5 bureaus, 3 divisions and 41 departments along with subsidiaries and will be led by a director and a deputy director. The organization will employ 1,476 employees, 569 more than the staff at the current KCDC. The new administration will strengthen the function of monitoring emergency situations in connection to infectious diseases, and a medical prevention and safety bureau overseeing the distribution of vaccines and safety management will newly be established. The agency will also have a stronger health and medical care R&D arm. Disease response centers will be established in five regions--Seoul metropolitan area, Chungcheong, Honam, Gyeongbuk, Gyeongnam--under the new agency and assist epidemiological surveys, which local governments find difficult to handle alone, and conduct testing and analysis.

The founding director, Jung first started her career in public health care when she worked at the Yangju Public Health Care Center in Gyeonggi-do as a doctor in 1994, after she became a certified specialist in family medicine at the Seoul National University Hospital. Four years later in 1998, she was recruited as a researcher at the Korea National Institute of Health, which would later become the KCDC, and began her career in public office.

She began overseeing affairs on infectious diseases in 2009, when she was appointed the manager of disease policies at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. During the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015, she led the contact tracing process as head of site inspections at the government’s response headquarters.

Jung might never have made it as the chief of the new agency. In 2016, the Board of Audit and Inspection decided on disciplinary measures against nine public officials in the health care field holding them accountable for the failure in containing MERS. At the time Jung was suspended from her post. Later that measure was weakened to a one-month salary cut. Many health care and epidemiology experts left public office disappointed at how the government excessively blamed those working in disease prevention, the people who had been busy working on site day and night, but Jung quietly kept her place.

In 2017, President Moon Jae-in made a surprise decision and appointed Jung, who held a bureau-chief position at the time, as the director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a vice-ministerial post. The nation was able to witness Jung’s rich experience and expertise after the outbreak of COVID-19. She cut her hair short to reduce the time she spent washing her hair and ate takeout lunch boxes to remain in the emergency coordination office (ECO). The director earned the confidence of the people.

The government newly established a second vice-ministerial position overseeing the health and medical field and nominated Kang Do-tae, head of planning and coordination at the health ministry. Cheongwadae said, “The second vice minister of health and welfare will wisely resolve health and medical issues by enhancing expertise in the field and by smoothly communicating with the public and the medical circle.”