A Texas nurse who was the second US healthcare worker infected with Ebola while caring for a Liberian patient left the hospital on Tuesday after being declared cured of the virus.

"I'm so grateful to be well and first and foremost I want to thank God," Amber Vinson, 29, said at a press conference at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, according to the World Health Organization.

Wearing a gray suit and pink blouse, Vinson appeared healthy and smiled often, occasionally wiping away tears as the medical team at Emory University Healthcare surrounded her and her doctor spoke about her care.

She also thanked her family and the medical teams in Texas and Georgia, and asked for people to continue to work to eradicate the Ebola outbreak abroad.

"While this is a day for celebration and gratitude, I ask that we not lose focus on the thousands of families that continue to labor under the burden of this disease in West Africa."

Her colleague Nina Pham, 26, who also worked in the intensive care unit of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, was treated for Ebola at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and was released on Friday.

Both became infected while caring for a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas after flying to the US from his native Liberia, the country hardest hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic. He died on October 8. Ebola has killed more than 4,900 people and infected more than 10,000 since the beginning of the year, according to the World Health Organization.