Time Magazine Names Ebola Doctors As Person Of The Year

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Ebola medics – both the international volunteers and the West African locals – have been honoured as Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year 2014. The magazine’s annual list of the most influential and important people in the world eschewed the big names this year, instead choosing to celebrate the unsung heroes and heroines fighting the deadly virus in West Africa.

“Ebola is a war, and a warning,” Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs wrote on the magazine’s website. “The global health system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious disease, and ‘us’ means everyone, not just those in faraway places… The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight.”

The reasons why Time wanted to honour the Ebola doctors? “For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving,” Gibbs said.

The other finalists for the award included the Ferguson protesters, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Founder of Chinese e-commerce business Alibaba Jack Ma and singer Taylor Swift.

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