Amid fighting the COVID-19 outbreak, the Greater Chennai Corporation has initiated a search operation to trace and locate 227 COVID-19 patients who have been missing from the records. 

The civic body has been taking measures to locate the cluster of 227 patients in the city. According to the reports, the Chennai Corporation has been looking for 473 patients of which 277 patients went missing till June 10 and 196 patients went missing from June 10 to July 5. Of these 473 patients, the authorities have traced and located 246 patients while the rest 227 remain at large.

The civic body has been trying to locate these missing people to avoid further spread. Commenting about the development, Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said that the civic body has been co-ordinating with the Chennai police to trace and locate 227 COVID-19 affected people. 

He further stated that the city has been testing 11,000 samples a day and some patients provide incorrect or incomplete information on their address and it becomes challenging to trace such people if their samples return positive for COVID-19. According to the reports, the authorities underline the wrong information and contact given by the patients as one of the main reasons behind the missing cases. 

The civic body has been tightening the measures to curb the spread in the city. The corporation has installed fever clinics in all the fifteen zones and the residents can approach such clinics and get tested after they develop the symptoms. The corporation has more than 400 such clinics as of July 4 and these clinics are examining 30,000 people every day during which they have been instructed to disclose their contact information to locate them. 

However, the inaccurate information and clerical errors have led to the reporting of 227 missing COVID-19 patients. On Sunday, Chennai has reported 1,713 fresh cases taking the city's tally to 68,254 so far of which 24,890 are active cases. As of Sunday, Tamil Nadu has reported 1,11,151 cases so far of which 46,860 cases are active, 62,778 have been discharged, and 1,510 patients had succumbed to the viral infection.