Background: Antibiotic overuse has led to increasing rates of antibiotic resistant infections and unnecessary antibiotic costs. Clinical pharmacists can play a key role in optimizing appropriate use of antimicrobials and reducing antimicrobial resistance. However, the role of clinical pharmacists in antimicrobial stewardship is new and not well established in Viet Nam. Objective: We evaluated the use of clinical pharmacists for improved antimicrobial prescribing. Methods: We assembled an antibiotic stewardship program (ASP) team consisting of a clinical pharmacist and a specialist in infection prevention and control in a 60-bed medical intensive care unit (MICU) at Hue Central Hospital in central Viet Nam. During January–September 2018, the ASP team collected baseline antibiotic prescribing days of therapy (DOT) for all antibiotics administered in the MICU. Then, from October 2018 through June 2019, the ASP team reviewed daily positive clinical bacterial cultures and susceptibility results for all patients present in the MICU. They reviewed medical charts, including antimicrobial prescriptions, during week days and only if patient was still in the ICU at the time of ASP rounds. The team recommended changes to antibiotic therapy verbally to physicians and left the decision to change antibiotic therapy to their discretion. The ASP team documented whether their recommendations were accepted or rejected. Statistical significance was determined using the Student t test. Results: The ASP team reviewed 160 medical charts and made 169 ASP recommendations: 122 (72%) to continue current treatment; 24 (14%) to monitor drug levels or obtain diagnostic tests; 10 (6%) to discontinue therapy; 6 (4%) to de-escalate therapy; 5 (3%) to adjust doses; and 2 (1%) to broaden therapy. Only 8 of the recommended changes (5%) were declined by the clinicians. The average monthly DOT for all types of antibiotics declined significantly from 2,213 to 1,681 (24% decrease; P = .04). Reductions in DOT for the most common broad-spectrum antibiotics included colistin from 303 to 276 (P = .75); imipenem-cilastatin 434 to 248 (P = .06); doripenem 150 to 144 (P = .85). Piperacillin-tazobactam increased from 122 to 142 (P = 0.75). Conclusions: We demonstrated that daily review of cultures and antibiotic use decreased overall antibiotic prescribing. Given that few recommendations included discontinuation of therapy, ASP rounds likely raised awareness for clinicians to optimize antibiotic use.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None

Group B streptococcus (GBS) infections are still the leading cause of invasive infections in neonates, specically they also seriously cause mortality and morbidity with underlying diseases in adults. Curently, there are ten GBS serotypes (Ia, Ib, and II-IX) and the resistance characteristic of GBS is important to clinical treatment. Objectives and methods: 30 clinical isolates of GBS were obtained from patients in Hue Central Hospital, Vietnam, from January 2016 until Jun 2019. Then the isolated GBS was conducted antimicrobial susceptibility test to determine the antibiotic resistance and serotypes by a multiplex PCR method. Results: GBS strains were resistant to tetracycline (100%), azithromycin (82.6%), erythromycin (80%) and clindamycin (80%). Resistance rates were lower with levofloxacin (45%), chloramphenicol (52.6%) and ceftriaxone (6.7%) whereas resistance was not observed in ampicillin, vancomycin and penicillin G. The distribution rate of serotype V (66.67%) was higher than type I (33.33%). Conclusions: Antibiotic resistance characteristics of GBS in samples are mostly familiar with other studies: β -lactams and vancomycin were the most susceptible antibiotics to GBS, the resistance rate in second line drug like clindamycin and erythromycin were high but there were large differences between studies. This study determined two GBS serotypes of Ia and V among isolated strains. Key words: Streptococcus agalactiae, GBS, antibiotic resistance, serotype.