Chimp attack victim receives face transplant

Charla Nash, the US woman whose face was ripped off by a chimpanzee, has received a full-face transplant -- just the third of its kind.

Her family and lead transplant surgeon, Dr Bohdan Pomahac, speaking to reporters at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said that while Nash was expected to regain control of her face, at this point doctors knew no way to "return her vision".

The 30-member surgical team led by Pomahac also performed a double hand transplant but due to complications the transplant did not take.

Nash was blinded and had her face, nose, lips and eyelids torn off in February 2009 by a a friend's 90kg chimpanzee named Travis.

At the time, Nash was trying to lure the chimp back into her friend's home in Stamford, Connecticut.

Al Jazeera's Mereana Hond reports.