Staff Correspondent

At least 225 journalists and media employees from 76 national and regional media houses have tested coronavirus positive across the country as of yesterday.

So far, three journalists have died from Covid-19.

The latest addition to the death tally is renowned TV personality Mostafa Kamal Syed, head of programmes, NTV. He died at Square Hospital around 1:30pm yesterday. Mostafa Kamal Syed earlier worked for BTV.

Other than that, three media people died with Covid-19 symptoms last month, according to a social media-based journalist group “Our Media, Our Rights”.

Of the infected, 197 are based in Dhaka and 28 from other areas of the country. Most are from electronic media.

Meanwhile, some 63 journalists have made full recovery.

The infected are from 76 national and regional media houses including 38 newspapers, 22 television channels, 11 news portals, four radio stations and one news agency.

The highest number of infected is from Daily Ittefaq with 21 and the second highest NTV with 20 journalists and media workers.

Seven persons including four journalists were tested positive at Bangla daily Somoyer Alo. Humayun Kabir Khokon (46), city editor of the newspaper, died from Covid-19 on April 28, the first death of a journalist from coronavirus.

On May 6, Mahmudul Hakim Apu, senior sub-editor of the same media house, also died with coronavirus symptoms.

On May 7, another journalist named Aslam Rahman, who was a staff reporter of Bangla daily Bhorer Kagoj, died with Covid-19 symptoms including respiratory complications. However, the day before his death the result for his coronavirus test was negative.

Of the infected, 15 are from Channel 24, 12 from Somoy TV, 10 from Ekattor TV, nine from Independent TV, eight from Deepto TV and six from SA TV.

Besides, nine are from Bangladesh Pratidin and four from Kaler Kantho. Two of the Prothom Alo journalists who were tested positive recovered recently.