Abstract: Objective To analyze clinical characteristics of bacterial meningitis and Japanese encephalitis(JE)for promoting the quality of the disease surveillance. Methods A surveillance system was established to capture the confirmed cases.Single factor analysis and discriminant analysis were conducted for 19 related indexes. Results A total of 535 suspected cases were evaluated in the surveillance,among which 38 and 23 cases were confirmed for JE and bacterial meningitis.Discriminant analyses yielded a JE confirmation rate of 84.21%(32/38)and a bacterial meningitis confirmation rate of 60.87%(14/23)with a total validation accuracy rate of 75.41%.Convulsion,change of cerebrospinal fluid appearance,elevated cerebrospinal fluid protein,and glucose reduction were clinical indicators of bacterial meningitis.Blood leukocyte count and neutrophil ratio in peripheral blood were of no significant diagnostic value. Conclusion The clinical diagnostic accuracy was not high and there were unreported cases for acute encephalitis syndrome and meningitis.