A MEDICAL EXPERT SYSTEM FOR MANAGING TROPICAL DISEASES

Abstract

In this paper, we proposed a Medical Expert Solution (MES) system that diagnoses symptoms related to a given tropical disease, suggests the likely ailment,. and advances possible treatment based on the MES diagnosis. The MES uses a knowledge base which comprises of two knowledge structures, namely symptom and diseases. The MES system has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for user to supply or obtain information to/from the expert system during run-time. The various symptoms of tropical diseases are stored in the diagnostic centre and the patient selects signs and symptoms from a drop-down list. These data are then used by the expert system to perform the diagnosis. The MES inference engine uses a forward chaining mechanism to search the knowledge base for symptom of disease and its associated therapy which matches the query"supplied by the patient. The implementation centered on a workflow activity chart and is divided into two levels for MES administrators and MES clients respectively. The MES would be useful for people who do not have access to medical facilities and also by those who need first-aid solution before seeing medical consultants. Thus, the MES will reduce physicians' workload during consultations and ease other problems associated with hospital consultations.