Jeong Eun-kyeong

Jeong Eun-kyeong or Jung Eun-kyeong (Korean: 정은경; Hanja: 鄭銀敬; born 9 July 1965) is a South Korean infectious disease and public health expert served as the first Commissioner of KDCA, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, from 2020 to 2022. Jeong was previously the first woman to lead its preceding agency, KCDC, which history dates back to 1981.

During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, Jeong led the Division of Disease Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. In 2015, during the MERS outbreak, she was responsible for press briefings and crisis management as the head of the Center for Disease Prevention of KCDC and field investigation team of central task force. In 2016 Board of Audit and Inspection ordered suspension of nine public health officials including Jeong for their failure to stop the worst MERS outbreak outside of the Middle East. Her suspension was reduced to 1-month of reduced pay after the Board was harshly criticized by the medical and scientific community for only punishing scientists such as Jeong, rather than politicians and administrators in charge. From the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020, Jeong has held daily briefings to report its status quo and answer questions from reporters by herself and from May 2020 every two days with the other given by the Director of KDCA's KNIH.

Jeong is included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020, BBC's 100 women of 2020 and Bloomberg 50.