A journalist has died in Dhaka, with symptoms of Covid-19 infection - fever, cough, and shortness of breath. He was 46 years old.
Humayun Kabir Khokon, city editor of Bangla newspaper Daily Shomoyer Alo, breathed his last at the Regent Hospital in Uttara on Tuesday night.
Md Shahed, chairman of Regent Hospital, confirmed the matter to Dhaka Tribune.
He is the first journalist in Bangladesh who have passed away with Covid-19 symptoms.
According to Khokon’s colleagues and family members, Khokon was working from home for the last 14 days as he was suffering from cold and fever.
However, on Tuesday evening, he suddenly fell very ill and fainted. His family took him to Regent Hospital, where the on-duty doctors pronounced him dead at around 10pm.
Shahed said: “Khokon’s family brought him to our hospital at around 7:30pm. We received him in a clinically dead state. Around 10pm he was officially pronounced dead.
"We couldn’t put him under life support as he was clinically dead before he was brought into the hospital. He had been suffering breathing complications.
“We suspect that he may have had Covid-19, but his family did not say anything to us regarding that,” he added.
A native of Comilla, Khokon worked at the Daily Amader Shomoy for long time before joining Shomoyer Alo.
As of Tuesday, Bangladesh has reported 6,462 confirmed cases of Covid-19 - a severely acute respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, also known as Sars-CoV-2 - with a death toll of 155, since the first cases were reported on March 8.
The pandemic has so far killed 214,000 people around the world, as of Tuesday.
