The Federal Ministry of Health has convened a special National Council on Health meeting.

The meeting involves all health commissioners across Nigeria’s 36 states and other stakeholders in the health sector to review the gains and lessons learnt from COVID-19 management towards building a more resilient health sector.

At the opening of the two-day NCH meeting on Thursday in Abuja, health minister Osagie Ehanire explained that Nigerians must remain alert as new variants of the virus, which are more contagious and virulent, power new waves of infections.

“Just in the last few days, we have heard of the new omicron variant, supposedly emerging from southern Africa, which has been labelled a variant of concern, and starting a new round of drastic measures like restrictions of flights and movement likely to hurt economic activities of countries,” Mr Ehanire stated.

The theme of the 2021 NCH is ‘The Journey to Attaining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Applying Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic Towards Building A Resilient National Health System’.

The 2014 National Health Act recognises the NCH as the highest policy-making body within the Nigerian health sector.

The responsibilities of the NCH include the protection, promotion, improvement, and maintenance of the health of Nigerians and the formulation of policies.

The council also ensures the delivery of basic health services to the people of Nigeria.

Speaking further, the health minister pointed out, “And so, whether it’s a COVID-19 variant or a new attack, we must strengthen our health security architecture to ensure we are prepared at all times to detect, and respond, in the interest of the health of our population.”

(NAN)