Dr Thato Mosidi never expected to be diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB), despite widely prevalent exposure and very limited infection control measures. The life-threatening diagnosis of primary extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) came as an even greater shock. The inconvenient truth is that, rather than being protected, Dr Mosidi and thousands of her healthcare colleagues are at an increased risk of TB and especially drug-resistant TB. In this viewpoint paper we debunk the widely held false belief that healthcare workers are somehow immune to TB disease (TB-proof) and explore some of the key factors contributing to the pervasive stigmatization and subsequent non-disclosure of occupational TB. Our front-line workers are some of the first to suffer the consequences of a progressively more resistant and fatal TB epidemic, and urgent interventions are needed to ensure the safety and continued availability of these precious healthcare resources. These include the rapid development and scale-up of improved diagnostic and treatment options, strengthened infection control measures, and focused interventions to tackle stigma and discrimination in all its forms. We call our colleagues to action to protect themselves and those they care for.

The dinuclear iron(II) complex [(pypzH)(NCSe)Fe([micro sign]-pypz)(2)Fe(NCSe)(pypzH)].2H(2)O displays a single, sharp spin crossover transition between the [HS-HS] and [LS-LS] states and is structurally characterised above and below the T(1/2)= 225 K value

Survival and treatment outcomes among MDR tuberculosis-HIV individuals receiving concurrent ART approached those of HIV-uninfected patients. The greatest risk of death was among HIV-infected individuals with CD4 counts ≤100 cells/mm3. These findings provide critical evidence to support concurrent treatment of MDR tuberculosis and HIV.

In order to expand the few known examples of dinuclear iron(II) compounds displaying (weak) intradinuclear exchange coupling and spin-crossover on one or both of the iron(II) centres, various dinuclear compounds have been synthesised and assessed for their spin-crossover and exchange coupling behaviour. The key aim of the work was to prepare and structurally characterise 'weakly linked' and 'covalently bridged' systems incorporating bridging ligands such as alkyldinitriles (e.g.NC(CH(2))(4)CN), bipyrimidine (bpym), dicyanamide (dca(-)), tricyanomethanide (tcm(-)), 3,6-bis(2-pyridyl)tetrazine (bptz) and 3,6-bis(2-pyridyl)2,5-dihydrotetrazine (H(2)bptz). The 'end groups', which complete the Fe(ii)N(6) chromophores, include tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine (tpa), di(2-pyridylethyl)(2-pyridylmethyl)amine (tpa'), 3-(2-pyridyl)pyrazole (pypzH), 1,10-phenanthroline (1,10-phen), tris(pyrazolyl)methane (tpm) and NCX(-)(X = S, Se). It was quite difficult to achieve the spin-crossover condition, many ligand combinations yielding high-spin/high-spin (HS-HS) Fe(II)Fe(II) spin states at all temperatures (300-2 K) with very weak antiferromagnetic coupling (J < -1 cm(-1)), two such being the crystallographically characterised [(dca)(tpm)Fe(mu(1,5)-dca)(2)Fe(tpm)(dca)], 5, and [(tpa')Fe(mu(1,5)-tcm)(2)Fe(tpa')](tcm)(2)(H(2)O)(2), 6. In contrast, a strong field was created around the Fe(II) centres in [(tpa)Fe(mu-(NC(CH(2))(4)CN))(2)Fe(tpa)](ClO(4))(4).NC(CH(2))(4)CN, 1, and the Fe-N bond distances, at 173 K, reflected this. This weakly-linked dinitrile example showed a spin-crossover beginning above 300 K. 'Half crossover' examples, yielding HS-LS states below the spin transition, similar to those noted by Real and coworkers in some mu-bpym systems, were noted for [(1,10-phen)(NCS)(2)Fe(mu-bpym)Fe(NCS)(2)(1,10-phen)], 2, [(pypzH)(NCSe)(2)Fe(mu-bpym)Fe(NCSe)(2)(pypzH)], 4, and [(tpa)Fe(mu-H(2)bptz)Fe(tpa)](ClO(4))(4), 8. Interestingly, the mu-bptz analogue, 7, remained LS-LS at all temperatures with the start of a broad spin crossover evident above 300 K. No thermal hysteresis was evident in the spin transitions of these new dinuclear crossover species indicating a lack of intra- or interdinuclear cooperativity.