Prothom Alo journo tests positive for coronavirus

Another journalist of a national daily Prothom Alo has tested positive for Covid-19.

Confirming the matter Sajjad Sharif, managing editor of the daily Prothom Alo, the most popular Bangla newspaper, on Monday said: “The infection was detected last night, and our male colleague, aged around 50, was not a foreign returnee.

In an notice published in Prothom Alo’s website it was stated that considering the crisis situation their head office will remain close, but the all their work regarding publishing the paper and maintaining their website will be done from home.

Sajjad Sharif said: “We have started full-fledged ‘work from home’ from today, while we were running the office with one-third of our employees coming to office each day since March 24.” 

He also said, Prothom Alo’s policy making body will hold a meeting in this regard to finalize what measures will be taken for the people with whom the person came in contact. 

"We will decide whether they will be sent to quarantine or not, as per the WHO instructions,” said Sajjad Sharif.

The patient had been in isolation in his own house for the last few days and has been admitted to a hospital on Monday.

Earlier, as many as eight journalists, including six in Dhaka, have been infected with coronavirus while the sources of most of their infections remained untraced with only one of them having recent history of travelling abroad.

Of them, six were employees of five private television channels and two were employees of two dailies, said Dhaka Reporters’ Unity President Rafiqul Islam Azad in media reports.