United News of Bangladesh

Mahfuzur Rahman, Editor of the United News of Bangladesh (UNB), has been appointed as the Speechwriter to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. The Ministry of Public Administration issued a gazette notification on Monday confirming the contractual appointment. According to the notification, “SAM Mahfuzur Rahman has been appointed on a contractual basis as the Honourable Prime Minister’s Speechwriter (Grade-1), subject to his relinquishing any employment or professional engagement with any other profession, business, or government, semi-government or private institution or organisation.” The notification further stated that the appointment will take effect from the date of his joining and will remain valid for the duration of the Prime Minister’s tenure or until further orders, whichever comes first.  

UNB Editor Mahfuzur Rahman has fully recovered from Covid-19, a month after testing positive for the virus.   He returned home on Thursday afternoon from Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital in the city after 25 days of treatment.    His follow-up test result came out negative on Wednesday.   Rahman thanked the doctors, nurses, health workers and the hospital management for providing quality treatment and services.   “I hope (Covid-19) patients in other hospitals will get quality treatment to win arduous battle against coronavirus,” he said.   The UNB editor expressed gratitude to the news agency’s management, his colleagues, friends, relatives and well-wishers for keeping him in their thoughts and prayers.   Rahman underwent Covid-19 test at Anwar Khan Modern Medical College Hospital in the city on May 26 as he had been suffering from high fever. The report came out four days later and confirmed that he had been infected with coronavirus.   He was admitted to the Holy Family Hospital on May 31 as his oxygen saturation level dropped following days of high fever and dry cough.   All of his family members tested negative for the virus.   Bangladesh health authorities confirmed the first Covid-19 cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18. In recent weeks, both the number of newly confirmed cases and deaths are spiking.   Until Wednesday, the country confirmed 122,660 coronavirus cases and 1,582 deaths.   Globally, the number of confirmed cases rose to 9,405,800 and the death toll climbed to 482,128 on Thursday, according to the Centre for System Science and Engineering of Johns Hopkins University.