Belgium’s first face transplant

BELGIAN surgeons have successfully performed the country’s first face transplant, the 19th in the world, doctors announced on Saturday.

Officials at the University Hospital of Ghent said a team of 65 surgeons and medical staff had performed the 20-hour operation a week earlier on a Belgian man with a severely mutilated face.

“He’s fine, he’s doing very well after six days,” surgeon Phillip Blondeel told Belgian television.