A team of South African surgeons at Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville, Cape Town, have announced that they have successfully completed the first penis transplant.

Professor André van der Merwe, head of the Division of Urology at Stellenbosch University, lead the operation, which took around nine hours to complete.

The patient had previously received a failed circumcision that actually left him without a penis at all. As shocking and devastating of a story that is, the University estimates that it happens to about 250 boys or men a year in South Africa. Circumcision at birth is not a common practice in South Africa, but is often suggested later in life as a way of supposedly cutting down the risk of contracting HIV.

Having a way to resolve any botched surgical jobs is truly an important forward movement. While there has been a penis transplant in the past, this is the first to have the lasting and desired effect. A man in China who had received a penis transplant had to have it removed when his body rejected the organ.

In this most recent case naturally the intention was to successfully create a functioning penis, but the doctors thought it would take near two years for the patient to reach full recovery status. Instead it only took four months.

Professor Frank Graewe, head of the Division of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery at SU spoke out about the impressive feat.

“It’s a massive breakthrough. We’ve proved that it can be done – we can give someone an organ that is just as good as the one that he had. It was a privilege to be part of this first successful penis transplant in the world.”

According to the surgeons the patient is without side effects, and very happy. He is reportedly sexually active and will be capable of having children if he wishes to do so.

South Africa was also the first country to perform a successful heart transplant, which took place in Cape Town in 1967.