The 77-year-old surgeon told the Afrikaans-language Rapport newspaper that he would undergo extensive surgery, including grafting skin from his forehead onto his nose, in Cape Town on December 20. "The prognosis is good and I have every hope of a complete recovery," Barnard said.

Barnard achieved international fame in 1967 when he led the team which performed the pioneering operation in Cape Town's Groote Schuur hospital.

The operation was a surgical success, although the patient died 18 days later of pneumonia after drugs, designed to suppress the rejection of the new heart, damaged his immune system.