Valencia, Spain  - Doctors in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia on Wednesday completed the country's first face transplant operation, which lasted nearly 16 hours, the head of the medical team and the Health Ministry said.

The donor was a 35-year-old man who was killed in a traffic accident, according to the ministry.

His facial tissue was transplanted on a 43-year-old male patient who had sustained serious injuries. Further details were not immediately known.

Doctor Pedro Cavadas headed a medical team of more than 30 people which performed the operation at Valencia's La Fe hospital.

Spanish experts described the operation as the eighth of its kind in the world, following others that have been performed in France, China and the United States.

The world's first person to receive a face transplant was French woman Isabelle Dinoire in 2005. (dpa)