MTBC L2/Beijing isolates from Astana, Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is among the countries with the highest number of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients in the world per 100,000 population. Successful clonal transmission of the local MDR strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis still needs to be investigated. A study of compensatory mutations that arise to alleviate the fitness cost of Rifampicin antibiotic resistance may explain how Rifampicin-resistant (RR)-TB and MDR-TB have spread so rapidly in Kazakhstan.