US surgeons are celebrating a medical achievement in which a 57-year-old patient is recovering after receiving a heart from a genetically modified pig.
However, this medical feat has revived news reports of an Indian doctor who had apparently attempted the same in Assam nearly 25 years ago.
In 1997, Dr. Dhani Ram Baruah of Assam, along with Hong Kong surgeon Dr. Jonathan Ho Kei-Shing, reportedly performed a pig-to-human heart and lung transplant in Guwahati. This led to a controversy and his imprisonment for 40 days, as per reports.
According to a Times of India report, Dr. Baruah transplanted a pig's heart into a 32-year-old man who had a hole in his heart, called a ventricular septal defect. But, the man died a week later.