U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked South Korean aid officials for joining the global fight against the Ebola virus, saying the contribution is "very meaningful," Seoul's foreign ministry said Sunday.

On Saturday, Ban met with a team of three officials from South Korea's foreign and health ministries at a hotel in Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone.

The officials arrived in the West African country last week to help a 10-member medical team that South Korea dispatched to the Ebola-hit nation earlier this month.

After undergoing training at an Ebola response center near London, the medical team arrived in Sierra Leone on Sunday.

"It is a very meaningful contribution to the international community that South Korea has moved first to join (the fight against Ebola) by dispatching a medical team to an Ebola-hit nation," Ban told the officials, according to the ministry.

Ban also stressed that the aim is to leave no traces of Ebola, saying that even one patient poses the risk of infection.

The U.N. chief has been on a series of visits to Ebola-hit countries, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. 

South Korea plans to send two more batches of medical workers to Sierra Leone before mid-February, the ministry said. (Yonhap)