President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday named Jung Ki-suck, 58 and currently director of Hallym University Medical Center, the new director of the Welfare Ministry-affiliated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to guard the nation’s front line against infectious diseases.
 
In a follow-up action to the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak that resulted in the deaths of 38 last year, the corresponding position was promoted to a vice ministerial level, starting from last month.

Jung is one of the nation’s top experts in the treatment of respiratory diseases, having set up the medical guidelines during the swine flu epidemic in 2009. He also revealed the process of the MERS virus penetrating into the human lungs and triggering acute pneumonia.

He served as senior director at the Korean Academy of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)