Skip to main content * English * Français ![\\"Home\\"](\\"/themes/custom/africacheck/images/logo.svg\\"/) ## Main navigation * Fact-checks * Reports * Factsheets * Guides * Spot Checks * Blog * Meta programme fact-checks * Republish our work * Who we are * Our team * Our impact * How we are funded * Partners * Get in touch * What we do * Info Finder * African Fact-Checking Awards * Corrections * Fact-checking research * Training * Media Literacy * Educator knowledge hub * How we fact-check * Corrections policy * Code of principles * How we rate claims * Get Involved * Donate * Submit a claim to fact-check * Partner with us * Join our team * Fact-checking tips * Quizzes Donate Back to Africa Check No ‘successful’ human head transplant – yet ![](\\"/sites/default/files/styles/hero_lg/public/2019/04/head_transplant.png?h=2240b8e9&itok=nSx6Aeag\\"/) # No ‘successful’ human head transplant – yet Published on 11 April 2019 FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailShare FacebookTwitterEmailLinkedInShare The world’s first human head transplant has been successfully achieved, claims a post on the Facebook page Science Academy.The post links to an article published on Science Insanity in January 2019. It’s been shared more than 1,000 times and sparked debate among Facebook users about the feasibility of such a transplant, and its implications.The article claims the “successful” transplant of one person’s head onto another person’s body was carried out at the Harbin Medical University in China by controversial Italian neurosurgeon Dr Sergio Canavero and his partner, Dr Xiaoping Ren. But the patient, it turns out, was already dead.Canavero reportedly said they were now ready to perform the surgery on a living person.Canavero, Xiaoping and their team have previously grafted the head of one monkey onto the body of another and performed a similar operation on rats.But attaching the head of one corpse to the body of another corpse does not make for a “successful human head transplant”. There is no evidence the surgery has been successfully performed on a living human. And experts say it probably never will.![\\"\\"](\\"/sites/default/files/head_transplant.png\\") ## Live human head transplant currently impossible According to November 2017 articles in Fortune and the Guardian, obstacles to successfully transplanting the head of a living person include the current impossibility of connecting head and neck tissue, nerve cells and the spinal cord so they all work.When the spinal cord is severed, the body is paralysed. The higher up in the spine the injury occurs, the more of the body that is paralysed. Medical science is still unable to reconnect the spinal cord in living patients.Dean Burnett, a doctor of neuroscience, says Canavero has been “courting publicity” while at the same time avoiding scrutiny of his procedure by peers. ## Head transplant in South Africa? The claim of the “world’s first successful human head transplant” has been around for at least four years.In April 2015, Snopes debunked a report of that such a procedure had been carried out in South Africa.The transplant was said to have been successfully achieved on a 36-year-old man during a 19-hour operation at the country’s Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. But the claim was false. – Allwell Okpi (12/04/19) ### Republish our content for free We believe that everyone needs the facts. You can republish the text of this article free of charge, both online and in print. However, we ask that you pay attention to these simple guidelines. In a nutshell: 1\. Do not include images, as in most cases we do not own the copyright. 2\. Please do not edit the article. 3\. Make sure you credit \"Africa Check\" in the byline and don\'t forget to mention that the article was originally published on africacheck.org. 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The world’s first human head transplant has been successfully achieved