Former US president Bill Clinton, 75, was released from a California hospital Sunday after spending five nights in treatment for an infection.

Clinton, arm in arm with his wife and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, gave a thumbs up after he walked slowly out of the hospital and shook hands with staff in front of television cameras.

"President Clinton was discharged from UC Irvine Medical Center today," said a statement by doctor Alpesh Amin released via a Clinton spokesman.

"His fever and white blood cell count are normalized and he will return home to New York to finish his course of antibiotics," added Amin, who oversaw the medical team treating the former president.

The US leader from 1993 to 2001 was admitted Tuesday evening to the hospital south of Los Angeles with a non-Covid-related blood infection.

The New York Times, quoting an aide, reported Clinton developed a urinary tract infection that turned into sepsis.

Sepsis is an extreme bodily reaction to infection that affects 1.7 million people in America annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It kills 270,000 of those infected every year.