A district in eastern Sierra Leone, which was the epicentre of the country's deadly Ebola outbreak, is now free from the virus, the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Eastern Kailahun district has not recorded a new Ebola case for the past 42 days, said district medical officer Sylvester Squire.

The last infection had been reported in the district on December 11, according to Squire.

The area of Kissi Teng in Kailahun, where the disease is assumed to have entered from neighbouring Guinea, did not report a new infection within the past three months, the medical officer added.

"We have finally contained it," said Squire.

The West African nation has been one of the countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak, with 10,340 reported cases and 3,145 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The number of people who have become infected with Ebola has reached 21,724 worldwide since the outbreak started in Guinea last December, according to WHO.