The Federal Government of Nigeria has approved a new National Health Policy.

This was revealed by the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, on Wednesday while speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council in Abuja.

Mr. Adewole said the new policy is the third in the history of Nigeria, coming after those of 1988 and 2004.

“The title of the policy is promoting the health of Nigerians to accelerate socio-economic development,” he said.

He also said the process of getting the policy to the FEC took some time.

“We constituted a technical working group, chaired by former minister of health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo, to look into the country’s context, the challenges, what went wrong in the past and how we can reposition the health sector,” he said.

Mr. Adewole said the new policy will also provide “direction necessary to support the achievement of significant progress in terms of improving the performance of the national health system.

“It also lays emphasis on primary healthcare  as the bedrock of our national health system in addition to the provision of financial risk protection to all Nigerians particularly the poor and vulnerable population,” he said.