A review: machine learning approaches in the diagnosis of infectious diseases

Infectious diseases are a group of medical conditions caused by infectious agents such as parasites, bacteria, viruses, or fungus. Patients who are undiagnosed may unwittingly spread the disease to others. Because of the transmission of these agents, epidemics, if not pandemics, are possible. Early detection can help to prevent the spread of an outbreak or put an end to it. Infectious disease prevention, early identification, and management can be aided by machine learning (ML) methods. The implementation of ML algorithms such as logistic regression, support vector machine, Naive Bayes, decision tree, random forest, K-nearest neighbor, artificial neural network, convolutional neural network, and ensemble techniques to automate the process of infectious disease diagnosis is investigated in this study. We examined a number of ML models for tuberculosis (TB), influenza, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), dengue fever, COVID-19, cystitis, and nonspecific urethritis. Existing models have constraints in data handling concerns such data types, amount, quality, temporality, and availability. Based on the research, ensemble approaches, rather than a typical ML classifier, can be used to improve the overall performance of diagnosis. We highlight the need of having enough diverse data in the database to create a model or representation that closely mimics reality.