Learn how South Korea managed to bring COVID-19 under control in this recorded interview between the Korea Society’s President, Thomas Byrne, and Professor of Infectious Diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital, Dr. Kim Woo Joo. Deemed by the media as South Korea’s “most prominent coronavirus expert”, Dr. Kim explains how he and the country learned from past epidemics to mobilize the public and private sectors to combat the novel coronavirus. Tune in to learn what lessons the U.S. and other countries can glean from South Korea’s successes.
COVID-19
LESSONS FROM SOUTH KOREA:
A Conversation Between Korea’s Top Coronavirus Expert
Dr. Kim Woo Joo and Korea Society President Thomas Byrne
The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Kim Woo Joo, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor,
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine,
Guro Hospital, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Professor Kim Woo Joo is a native of Korea, where he received a Doctor of Medicine (Korea University College of Medicine, 1983) and was boarded in internal medicine (Korea University Hospital, 1987). In 1990, he joined the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Korea University Guro Hospital as a Clinical Instructor and achieved the subspecialty board of adult infectious diseases in 1992. From 1996 to 1997, he served as a visiting scholar at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago, USA. Between 1999 and 2001, he worked as Chief of the Laboratory of Respiratory Viruses and the National Influenza Center at the Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH), supervising the surveillance, control, and research activities concerning influenza, measles, rubella, and mumps. While at the KNIH, Professor Kim was instrumental in the establishment of the Korean Influenza Surveillance Scheme (KISS), the first such national surveillance system for influenza. Since 2000, Professor Kim has been a member of the National Advisory Committee on Influenza. He provides advice on issues such as the identification of priority groups for influenza vaccination programs, the appropriate vaccination campaign, surveillance, burden of disease studies, and vaccine safety. Since 2007, he also has been advising on the influenza pandemic preparedness plan that the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) is developing, as well as the research and development of the influenza pandemic vaccine. In recognition of his expertise in and contribution to the field of influenza, he was appointed as Chair of the Trans-governmental Enterprise for Pandemic Influenza in Korea (TEPIK) in 2010, designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. He was the president of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases from 2014 to 2015. During the 2015 MERS-CoV outbreak in Korea, he had served as the leader of Rapid Response Team and special supervisor to the prime minister to help the government contain the outbreak within two months. In the last five years, Professor Kim has published numerous articles in international journals, including the Lancet, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine, Clinical Vaccine and Immunology, PLoS One, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Epidemiology and Infection, Scientific Reports, Journal of Clinical Virology and the Journal of Medical Virology.
