In 2003, the hospital was declared the designated hospital for
SARS screening and treatment by the
Ministry of Health due to its past experience with communicable diseases (the
Communicable Disease Centre was located nearby) and was "effectively locked down" to contain the outbreak, which began with Esther Mok. At the lobby of the hospital, a memorial plaque was dedicated in memory of the hospital's doctors and healthcare workers, two of whom died of the disease, who worked tirelessly during the SARS epidemic and Minister of Health
Gan Kim Yong paid tribute to the hospital's staff. On 13 December 2018, the Communicable Disease Centre ceased operations as a medical facility, concluding its 121 years of operations. All operations moved to the
National Centre for Infectious Diseases, which was officially opened on 7 September 2019 by
Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong. The 330-bed facility is designed to manage an outbreak of the size of the SARS outbreak, boasting state-of-the-art technologies. In addition, the facility tracks patients in the building to prevent the spread of outbreaks and houses Singapore's first high-level isolation unit for highly contagious, even lethal diseases like
Ebola. == National specialty centres ==