Bhubaneswar: A journalist with a vernacular news channel, Prabir Kumar Pradhan, succumbed to COVID-19 infection on Thursday morning.
He was a senior crime reporter with News18 Odia news channel. He breathed his last at 8:12 am at Aditya Ashwini COVID Hospital in the Odisha capital.
According to sources, his father had died of the infection a month ago. He had joined duty after completing his home isolation. However, he was later diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to the hospital after his condition deteriorated last week. He was put on a ventilator on Wednesday.
A native to Athamallik in Angul district, he is survived by his wife and a two-and-half-year-old daughter.
Pradhan is not the first journalist to have died of COVID-19 in the state, Simanchal Panda of a weekly Odia magazine, Priyadarshi Patnaik of ‘The Samaja’ and K. CH. Ratnam of ‘Eenadu’ had earlier succumbed to the deadly virus.