## 2 Methodology
### Dataset Description and Preprocessing
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l l l l} \hline \hline
**SN** & **Symptom/Disease** & **Abbreviation** & **SN** & **Symptom/Disease** & **Abbreviation** \\ \hline
1 & Abdominal pains & ABDPN & 33 & Muscle and body pain & MSCBDYPN \\
2 & Back pain & BCKPN & 34 & Mouth ulcer & MUTUCR \\
3 & Bitter taste in mouth & BITAMM & 35 & Nausea & NUS \\
4 & Bleeding & BLDN & 36 & Night sweats & NCTSWT \\
5 & Bloody urine & BLDYURN & 37 & Pain behind the eyes & PNBHEYE \\
6 & Catarrh & CTRH & 38 & Upper back pain (loin) & UPDKCPN \\
7 & Chest indraw & CHSHND & 39 & Painful urination & PURLURNTN \\
8 & Chest pain & CHSHPN & 40 & Peritonitisis & PERTN \\
9 & Chills and rigors & CHINRIC & 41 & Red eyes & REDYE \\
10 & Cloudy urine & CLDVURN & 42 & Red eyes, face, tongue & REDYEYECTING \\
11 & Constipation & CNST & 43 & Sensitivity to light & SENLLHT \\
12 & Cough (initial dry) & CGHDRY & 44 & Shock & SHK \\
13 & Dharnea & DRH & 45 & Skin rash & SKNBSH \\
14 & Difficulty breathing & DIFBRT & 46 & Sore throat & SKTRT \\
15 & Dizziness & DIZ & 47 & Suprapubic pains & SPBPN \\
16 & Dry cough & DRYCGH & 48 & Urinary frequency & URNRQC \\
17 & Fatigue & FTG & 49 & Vomiting & VMT \\
18 & Fever & FVR & 50 & Wheezing & WHAZ \\
19 & High persistent fever & HGPSFVR & 51 & Malaria & MAL \\
20 & High-grade fever & HGCDFVR & 52 & Typhoid fever & ENFVR \\
21 & Stepwise rise fever & SWRFVR & 53 & HIV and AIDS & HVAD \\
22 & Sudden onset fever & SUDONFVR & 54 & Upper urinary tract infection & UPUTI \\
23 & Low-grade fever & LWGCDFVR & 55 & Lower urinary tract infection & LIVUITI \\
24 & Foul breath & FOLBRT & 56 & Upper respiratory tract infection & URTI \\
25 & Body itching & BDYICH & 57 & Lower respiratory tract infection & LRTI \\
26 & Generalized body pain & GENBYPN & 58 & Tuberculosis & TB \\
27 & Generalized rashes & GENRSH & 59 & Lassa fever & LASFVR \\
28 & Headaches & HDACH & 60 & Yellow fever & YELFVR \\
29 & Intestinal bleeding and perforation & INTBLEPRF & 61 & Dengue fever & DENFVR \\
30 & Joint swelling & JINSWL & & & \\
31 & Lethargy & LIG & & & \\
32 & Lymph node swelling & LMPNDSWL & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Descriptive statistics of male and female patients in the dataset. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l l l} \hline \hline
**Age Range** & **Male** & **Female** & **Pregnant Women** & **Ng** & **Nusing Mothers** & **Ng** \\ \hline \textless{5 years} & 534 & 419 & 1 st trimester & 139 & 0-3 months & 27 \\
5 years to 12 years & 346 & 323 & 2 nd trimester & 184 & 4–6 months & 35 \\
13 years to 19 years & 150 & 213 & 3 rd trimester & 86 & 7–9 months & 28 \\
20 years to 64 years & 1012 & 1605 & & & Over 9 months & 63 \\
65 years and above & 133 & 135 & & & \\ Total & 2175 & 2695 & **Total** & **409** & **Total** & **153** \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Patient symptoms and diseases in the dataset. To further reduce the number of confirmed diseases to the six diseases that were included in the scope of this study, upper respiratory tract infections (URTI), lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), as well as upper urinary tract infections (UPUTI), and lower urinary tract infections (LWUTI), were combined into respiratory tract infections (W  
Figure 3: Pre-processed data. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l  
(RTI) and urinary tract infections (UTI), respectively. Max operation, also known as max function, was applied to combine the two sets of severity levels into a single value [24]. The max operation combines severity scales, emphasizing the highest severity recorded across multiple metrics, by taking the maximum value from two or more related measurements. Given that \(U\) and \(L\) are the severity levels of upper and lower urinary tract infections respectively, the max operation \(M(U,L)\) can be expressed as follows:  
\[M(U,L)=\max(U,L) \tag{1}\]  
where \(U\) represents the first input to the max operation while \(L\) represents the second input to the max operation, the max function returns the maximum value between \(U\) and \(L\).