BEIJING, January 12 (TMTPOST) — A regional manager of Zhengzhou KingMed, surnamed Zhang, has been detained by the authorities on suspicion of causing the spread of Covid-19, the Public Security Bureau of Xuchang city announced.

Zhang is suspected of violating rules of pandemic control and prevention and causing the spread of the coronavirus, according to the announcement. It is unclear how Zhang had violated the rules due to the lack of details in the announcement. The case is still under investigation.

There are numerous speculations about the incident, including voluntary and active spread of covid, falsifying data and hiding covid cases, which the company has claimed to be purely fake news and rumors in an announcement on its Weibo page. There are rumors on the Internet that claim KingMed Diagnostics’ staff lost some of the covid test samples and falsified negative results.

The share price of Guangzhou KingMed Diagnostics Group Co. Ltd., which is the parent company of Zhengzhou KingMed, fell by as much as over 7% during trading on Wednesday. KingMed’s share price closed as 91 yuan per share, registering a 5.79%. KingMed’s market valuation had fallen by over two billion yuan to 42.37 billion yuan as a result.

KingMed Diagnostics had pledged to cooperate with the authorities to investigate the matter and would make timely disclosure of investigation results to the public.

“The company is working with the authorities on the investigation. Zhengzhou KingMed’s medical diagnostic services are not affected by this incident,” the company’s spokesperson said.

Zhengzhou KingMed is reportedly responsible of one-third of the covid tests in Zhengzhou, one of the biggest cities in central China with a population of 10.35 million. The company has made revenue of 3.36 billion yuan in Q1-Q3 2021 from its covid testing business. Zhengzhou KingMed had performed 10 million covid tests as of October 2021.

Founded in 2006, Guangzhou KingMed Diagnostics Group specializes in medical testing. It is one of the largest third-party medical testing service providers in China with 38 labs in China. The company has labs in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing and Hong Kong, etc. Its services cover areas accommodating 90% of the country's population.

本文内容来源：钛媒体英文站