Mycobacterium tuberculosis RD-Rio strains are still rare in the former Soviet Union countries and Asia. We describe a strain in Kazakhstan that belongs to the RD-Rio secondary branch, which is endemic to northwest Russia and eastern Europe. Although RD-Rio strains are frequently multidrug resistant, this heterogeneous branch included only drug-susceptible isolates.
Keywords: Kazakhstan; RD-Rio; antimicrobial resistance; bacteria; drug resistance; molecular epidemiology; mycobacteria; tuberculosis and other mycobacteria.