Journalists in the country directly and indirectly are affected by the pandemic infection that hits around 120,000 currently in Ethiopia and misinformation on the health menace itself. The Ethiopian Health Ministry has identified journalists as one of COVID-19 high-risk groups of the society. Seleshi Dabi, Department Head of the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), the National Broadcaster, English News Desk, agrees that journalists are facing various challenges and not protected in Ethiopia. The Ministry of health and government health care institutions requires journalists to follow strict procedures to access COVID-19 information sometimes filling out formal bureaucratic requests. He told this reporter that since Ethiopia had its first case in mid-March, journalists, including him, had to report about COVID-19 for EBC regularly.

Source: Ethiopian News January 25, 2021 11:48 UTC