The Hague (AFP) - A Nigerian UN peacekeeper infected with Ebola and brought to the Netherlands for treatment has been cured, the Dutch authorities said on Friday.

"The Nigerian patient who was admitted on December 6 has been cured of Ebola," the Dutch public health institute RIVM said in a statement.

The soldier was infected while working as a peacekeeper battling the deadly disease in Liberia.

He was flown to the Netherlands at the request of the World Health Organisation in a specially equipped plane and treated at the university hospital in central city Utrecht.

He was the first Ebola patient to be treated in the Netherlands and will stay at a military hospital until he can return home, the RIVM said.

Ebola has killed more than 6,900 people, almost all of them in west Africa.

Liberia tops the number of fatalities at 3,290 deaths but Sierra Leone earlier this month overtook it as the country with the most infections.