The world's first hand transplant has been carried out by an international team of doctors at a French hospital. The right hand and forearm of the anonymous donor were attached to 48-year-old Australian Clint Hallam, whose hand was amputated in 1989 after an accident. Doctors attached "all the arteries, veins, nerves, tendons, muscles and skin after setting the two bones of the forearm", the Edouard Herriot hospital said. The 13.5-hour operation was the result of recent advances in microsurgery and transplant techniques, it said.