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Lyme borreliosis (LB) is one of the most common vector-borne diseases transmitted by ticks. It is caused by the Borrelia burgdorferisensu lato (s.l.) genospecies. The Almaty oblast of Kazakhstan is considered endemic for LB. Nevertheless, there are significant gaps in the tick surveillance for LB agents in the region. We evaluated B. burgdorferis.l. prevalence in 413 ixodid ticks collected from bitten people and the seroprevalence of antibodies to B. burgdorferis.l. in 589 residents of the Almaty oblast, Kazakhstan. All samples were collected between 2018 and 2020. Borrelia burgdorferis.l. DNA was detected in 24 % (9/38) of I. persulcatusticks that attacked humans in the city of Almaty and the Talgar and Karasay districts. Multilocus sequence typing identified two novel B. afzeliisequence types in I. persulcatus. The seroprevalence of IgG antibodies against B. burgdorferis.l. in the analyzed population was detected to be 5.8 %. The obtained results confirm active circulation of B. burgdorferis.l. in the Almaty oblast of Kazakhstan and raise concern regarding LB preventive measures in the region.

Borreliosis is one of the most common vector-borne zoonotic diseases in the world. Limited data are available regarding Borreliaspp. and their genotypes in Kazakhstan. The goal of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Borreliaspp. in ixodid ticks collected in the southeastern region of Kazakhstan. A total of 1,907 ixodid ticks were collected by flagging vegetation at three collection areas in the Almaty oblast between 2015 and 2018. They were grouped into 407 pools and examined by qPCR for Borrelia burgdorferisensu lato (s.l.). A conventional PCR with specific primers targeting 16S rRNA gene was used to differentiate B. burgdorferis.l. genospecies. Sequence analysis of the PCR products was performed for sixteen samples. Lyme borreliosis agents were only detected in adult questing Ixodes persulcatus. The overall B. burgdorferis.l. prevalence in I. persulcatusestimated as the minimum infection rate reached 10.7%. Borrelia burgdorferisensu stricto was not detected in any of the tick pools. Partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed the presence of B. miyamotoi, B. afzelii,and B. garinii. Borrelia afzeliiwas the dominant genospecies in Almaty oblast. A significantly lower proportion of B. gariniipositive tick pools was detected in the Zailiyskiy Alatau as compared to the Dzungarian Alatau (χ2= 16.243; p =  0.0001) and Yenbekshikazakh district (χ2= 7.4156; p =  0.0065). The obtained results indicate the epidemiological significance of B. afzeliiand B. gariniiin southeastern Kazakhstan. These new data aim to improve the diagnostics of Lyme borreliosis and monitoring of tick-borne infections in Kazakhstan.