Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Boitumelo Semete Makokotlela

latest news & developments
What’s ketamine all about? Bhekisisa recently spoke with Bavi Vythilingum, a member of the South African Society of Psychiatrists, who helped write the guidelines for ketamine use to understand more about the drug and how it works. (Wikimedia)
ANAESTHETICS

Elon Musk, depression and South Africa’s cowboy ketamine clinics

Ketamine has been used for decades as an anaesthetic drug, but in the past few years, more and more psychiatrists have been using it for hard-to-treat depression

  • Bhekisisa Team
9 min read
Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela leads the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra). Image: Saphra.
BHEKISISA CENTRE FOR HEALTH JOURNALISM

‘Call me Tumi’: Meet the young woman who heads SA’s medicines regulator

Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela leads the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) — a public entity few people knew about until the Covid-19 pandemic hit

  • Sean Christie
11 min read
Used vials of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
BOITUMELO SEMETE MAKOKOTLELA

Wait, donate, demolish: Why millions of South Africa’s vaccines will never be used

Children aged five to 11 get smaller doses of the Pfizer vaccine than adults. That means the government will have to buy new vials to vaccinate this age group but the health…

  • Mia Malan
6 min read
BOITUMELO SEMETE MAKOKOTLELA

The vaccines arrive on Monday: Who will protect them and who will get them first?

The first batch of vaccines is almost here, but a top government adviser says achieving herd immunity by the end of the year is ‘unrealistic’

  • Chris Bateman
5 min read