JFA  demands mass Covid-19 screening for media employees 

GUWAHATI: Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) while expressing serious concern over increasing number of city-based media employees getting infected with novel corona virus in the last few days, has urged all media houses to go for mass Covid-19 screening for their employees including the working journalists.

Days back, a printer-publisher of Hindi newspaper  Nishpaksha Samachar Jyoti tested positive for COVID-19. City-based Prahlad Kumar Agarwal thus became the first  corona virus infected media person of the State. Unconfirmed reports claim that around ten media employees working in the city lately tested positive for COVID-19.

“We are now worried as our health minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma himself stated in public that journalists of two news channels tested positive for Covid-19,” said a statement issued by JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria.

The forum also appeals to the State Health Minister to facilitate all media houses to organize mass screening camps for their valued employees at the earliest. “After all, the media persons are playing the role COVID-19 warriors disseminating necessary information in the time of a pandemic,” the JFA said.