Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an illness caused by a novel coronavirus which is now called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV), first identified as an illness in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. It was initially reported to the World Health Organisation on December 31, 2019, and on January 30, 2020, World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency. Keeping in view its spread to different countries, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11 2020.

Northwest General Hospital & Research Centre followed the outbreak as a matter of professional development, and with the help of the international contacts of the Hospital Consultants, had soon developed a regimen for the best possible treatment of the illness. As soon as the government allowed private healthcare setups to accept COVID patients for admission, NWGH dedicated a fully isolated ward to COVID patients and started diligent treatment of the patients, thus becoming one of the first private hospitals in the region to accept COVID-19 patients. Not only did this provide quality care to COVID-19 patients, but it also helped the government hospitals by taking some of the load off their already stretched resources.

As of now, NWGH has isolated a 50-bed ward equipped with ventilators, Positive Airway Pressure machines, diagnostics and fully trained staff in the separate building of Northwest Teaching Hospital, thus ensuring separation of COVID-19 and regular patients at NWGH yet providing the best possible care and treatment of COVID-19 patients.