Patients affected by Ebola should be killed to defeat the deadly virus, a pro-life American politician has said.

The remarks of Todd Kincannon, former executive director of the Republican Party in South Carolina, sparked outrage as the World Health Organization warned at least 7,000 people in West Africa have contracted the disease.

Kincannon made the comment on Twitter, where he also asked "Why do creepy viruses always come from Africa? HIV, Marburg, Ebola, West Nile..."

There\'s just no other way with Ebola. We need to be napalming villages from the air right now. RT @gracels No, but I wouldn\'t kill them. — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014

.@gracels I\'m fine with that too. But if somebody gets through and has Ebola, kill it with fire and salt the earth. Compassion is a killer. — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014 Why advertise with us

Why do creepy viruses always come from Africa? HIV, Marburg, Ebola, West Nile, etc. This is not a racist question. — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 7, 2014

He then suggested he would kill with "zero hesitation" the cameramen and health workers who returned from West Africa and who might have contracted the disease.

With zero hesitation. RT @gracels: @SCOAMT Not all Ebola victims die. You would kill the medical workers we brought back? The cameraman? — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014

Kincannon also invited health workers to refuse to treat Ebola patients:

.@gracels If I was a hospital employee, I would flatly refuse to work on Ebola cases. Hospital employees should do that en masse. — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014

.@gracels It\'s mathematical. Do whatever saves the most lives. But here\'s a fact: treating Ebola patients kills more innocent people. — Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) October 4, 2014

Dozens of people reacted with outrage to his comments, with some calling him insensitive.

Todd Kincannon is to a mind what ebola is to a body & should be quarantined the same way. — Caroline (@JamboR1989) October 3, 2014

BTW @Todd__Kincannon is known for inflammatory posts about everything- now tweeting insensitive and inflammatory posts about #Ebola — P. Mimi Poinsett MD (@yayayarndiva) October 4, 2014

This is not the first time that Kincannon has sparked controversy for his tweets. In 2013, he mocked 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin<sup>, who was killed by his neighbour George Zimmermann in Florida.

He also said transgender people should be placed in a concentration-style camp and suggested that Muslims should receive the same treatment "that our forefathers did to the savages that infested America prior to Christopher Columbus."

This last tweet, posted on 1 October 2014, was subsequently deleted.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst in history, has killed at least 3,400 people in West Africa. One man in Texas was reported to have contracted the virus in October and a Spanish nurse in Madrid has also tested positive to the disease in Madrid.

The virus is contracted via contact with infected body fluids.

The WHO assured people that the deadly disease is not airborne following recent speculation.