Introduction: Bacterial meningitis is an acute central nervous infection with high mortality or permanent neurological sequelae if remained undiagnosed. However, traditional diagnostic methods for bacterial meningitis pose challenge in prompt and precise identification of causative agents.

Aims: The present study will therefore aim to set up in-house PCR assays for diagnosis of six pathogens causing the disease including H. influenzae type b, S. pneumoniae, N. meningitidis, S. suis serotype 2, E. coli and S. aureus.

Methods: inhouse PCR assays for detecting six above-mentioned bacteria were optimized after specific pairs of primers and probes collected from the reliable literature resources and then were performed for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with suspected meningitis in Hue Hospitals.

Results: The set of four PCR assays was developed including a multiplex real-time PCR for S. suis serotype 2, H. influenzae type b and N. meningitides; three monoplex real-time PCRs for E. coli, S. aureus and S. pneumoniae. Application of the in-house PCRs for 116 CSF samples, the results indicated that 48 (39.7%) cases were positive with S. suis serotype 2; one case was positive with H. influenzae type b; 4 cases were positive with E. coli; pneumococcal meningitis were 19 (16.4%) cases, meningitis with S. aureus and N. meningitidis were not observed in any CSF samples in this study.

Conclusion: our in-house real-time PCR assays are rapid, sensitive and specific tools for routine diagnosis to detect six mentioned above meningitis etiological agents.