Okayama University Hospital said Tuesday it will conduct a lung transplant operation on a 6-year-boy in Vietnam on or around Feb. 21.

If successful, it would be the first such lung transplant surgery in Vietnam, the hospital said.

A team of about 30 people, including surgeons and anesthesiologists, will perform the operation at a hospital in Hanoi on a boy who suffers from lung fibrosis, a disease that causes respiratory failure.

The boy will receive parts of lungs from his father and another relative. There is no other way to save the boy, according to the hospital.

"By successful lung transplant surgery, we want to contribute to the development of Vietnam's medical care," said Takahiro Oto who will lead the team.

Okayama University Hospital has conducted over 160 lung transplants, the most for any such facility in Japan. It received a request from Vietnam last June.

In 2011, the hospital successfully transplanted lungs into a man in Sri Lanka in the first such surgery in that country.