(Yicai Global) April 24 -- Alibaba Group Holding, Suning, JD and several other Chinese e-commerce platforms have teamed up with healthcare providers to offer online booking services for Covid-19 nucleic acid tests, with prices starting from as little as CNY99 (USD14).

JD’s healthcare subsidiary JD Health and Guangzhou-based independent clinical testing laboratory KingMed Diagnostics were the first to offer the service on April 20 for CNY259 (USD36). Test results are available within 24 hours. So far more than three million people in 11 cities have made an appointment with them. The service will soon be expanded to 50 cities.

From today, Alibaba’s group-shopping site Juhuasuan is offering the best bargain at CNY99 a pop, though that is heavily subsidized. Suning’s bookings through the same Beijing-based healthcare provider, iKang Guobin Healthcare Group, cost CNY260. Suning’s service was rolled out across 41 cities including the major metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen yesterday.

Alibaba Health Information Technology has teamed up with Shanghai-based Meinian Onehealth Healthcare to make appointments booked on Meinian’s online Tmall store available in 70 cities at prices ranging from CNY180 to CNY260, the Hong Kong-based firm said on April 21.

Alibaba Health’s stock price [HKG:0241] jumped by 18.3 percent the following day. It closed down 6.4 percent today at HKD18.34 (USD2.37).

There are hospitals and laboratories nationwide that also provide Covid-19 testing facilities for between CNY40 and CNY400 a time.

Editor: Kim Taylor