Increasing circulation of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis strains in Buryatia, high-burden and ethnically diverse region in the Russian Far East.

Buryatia is a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) high-burden region in the Russian Far East with ethnically diverse population (30 % Mongoloid Buryats and 65 % Russians). Two hundred M. tuberculosis strains from newly-diagnosed patients were subjected to phenotypic testing and genotyping.