Why Time Magazine named Ebola Fighters as TIME’s Person of the Year 2014

 

Time Magazine has named the Ebola fighters(Doctors) as their person of the year for 2014.

According to Nancy Gibbs, Time Magazine editor, who stated the rationale behind the selection: “2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic…It reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place…. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one.”

“Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams. Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away.”

“Ebola is a war, and a warning. 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 where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day.”

“The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are Time’s 2014 Person of the Year.”

Other finalists for the award include Roger Goodell, The Ferguson protesters, Vladimir Putin, Taylor Swift, Jack Ma, Tim Cook, and Masoud Barzani,