Dr VD Merwe performs world’s first penis transplant. (Comments added)
From hearts to, well, you know. We South Africans like our medical firsts. And now to the name of world heart transplant pioneer Dr Chris Barnard we can add Dr Andre van der Merwe, who led the team that replaced a 21 year old's amputated penis. Xhosa initiates everywhere will be much relieved. Men worldwide, whom nature disadvantaged, will soon be booking flights to Cape Town. And the nation will celebrate a new line in medical tourism that has the potential to easily surpass the vanity income stream first blazed by boob jobs. – Alec Hogg
By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN, March 13 (Reuters) – South African doctors have successfully performed the world's first penis transplant on a 21-year-old man whose organ had been amputated three years ago after a botched circumcision. The nine-hour operation, which took place in December, was part of a pilot study by Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch to help the 250 or so young South African men who lose their penises each year after coming-of-age rituals go wrong.
"Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery," Andre van der Merwe, the head of the university's urology unit who led the operation, said in a statement.
Another nine patients have now been lined up to have the operation.
But in May 2013, more than 20 youths died after initiation rituals in the northerly Mpumalanga province, prompting rare cross-party calls for reform of a traditional practice.