Doctors in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha have performed an operation on a 54-year-old man who accidentally swallowed a toothbrush, a hospital source said on Thursday.

Marijan Saleh was brushing his teeth on Tuesday when the brush accidentally slid down his throat and ended up in his stomach.

"He was operated on and the toothbrush removed from the intestines," the spokesperson of Selian Hospital in Arusha, Paul Kissanga, told AFP by telephone.