With rain related illnesses causing 41 deaths in Mumbai in the past 17 days, this city has topped the list of places in Maharashtra with the highest number of people affected by water-borne diseases in the monsoon season.

Between July 1 and July 16, 36 people died due to water-borne diseases. On Tuesday, five more deaths were reported from civic hospitals, taking the total number of deaths to 41, health officials of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai said.

So far, 17 people have died of fever, nine of leptospirosis, 12 of malaria and three of gastroenteritis, they said.

Mumbai had the highest number of people affected by water-borne diseases during the current monsoon season and this could be due to the better reporting system, senior health official Suhas Ranade told PTI.

According to the state health directorate, the number of cases of diarrhoea reported from flood-affected districts was 3,656 of which 2,400 were from Mumbai.

No confirmed classical or clinical case of cholera has been reported so far, it said.

Mumbai also accounted for 620 of the 1,083 malaria cases reported from the flood-affected districts.

There were a total of 78 cases of suspected leptospirosis from Mumbai and nine deaths due to this disease were reported.

In Vidharbha region, encephalitis claimed 17 lives, including seven in Gondia, five in Bandara, three in Chandrapur and one each in Gadchiroli and Yavatmal, Ranade said.