Time Magazine names Ebola fighters as Person of the Year

Doctors, nurses and others fighting Ebola have beennamed Time's 2014 Person of the Year, the magazine announced
Wednesday.

The runners-up included Ferguson, Mo., protesters; RussianPresident Vladimir Putin; Kurdish Regional Government PresidentMassoud Barzani; and Jack Ma, the China-based founder of e-commercegiant Alibaba.

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• Red Cross needs volunteers to help contain Ebola in West Africa
• Ebola fight sees Canadian Forces medical team deployed to Sierra Leone
• Ebola outbreak: aid worker Craig Kenzie says more volunteers needed

In an article on the Time website, Editor Nancy Gibbs praised"the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors WithoutBorders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Christian medical-reliefworkers of Samaritan's Purse and many others from all over theworld" who "fought side by side with local doctors and nurses,ambulance drivers and burial teams."

'If it helps us wipe out this epidemic faster, all the better'- Antoine Petibon, French Red Cross

Gibbs noted that the disease also struck doctors and nurses."The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men
and women are willing to stand and fight," she wrote.

"Fortireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time toboost itsdefences, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are Time's 2014 Person of the Year."

Antoine Petibon, head of international programs for the FrenchRed Cross, which has been active in anti-Ebola efforts in the

French-speaking country of Guinea, called it "great recognition forall these people who have been toiling in the shadows.""If it helps us wipe out this epidemic faster, all the better,"Petibon added.

Reached in Nairobi, Birte Hald, head of emergency operations forthe International Federation of Red Cross and Red CrescentSocieties, welcomed the magazine's choice, but used the opportunityto stress who she thinks deserves the honour and credit. "I think it should be awarded to the front-line fighters, those who are doing all the dangerous stuff," Hald said. "People likemyself, we are working hard, but we are not at risk. People doing the safe and dignified burials, the contact tracing and thetransport of the sick, working in the treatment centres -- these arethe people who deserve our praise and respect."

Pope Francis was last year's person of the year.