‘Ebola fighters’ — Person of the Year
The special issue features five separate covers, each telling the story of what it calls an ‘Ebola fighter’ working in West Africa. Time Editor Nancy Gibbs wrote: ‘2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic… It reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it travelled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the USA. 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 Organisation was in denial and snarled in red tape’.
The five featured workers are: 1. Dr. Jerry Brown, 46, medical director and surgeon in Monrovia, Liberia. 2. Salome Karwah, 26, caregiver at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic in Monrovia. 3. Foday Gallah, 37, ambulance supervisor in Monrovia. 4. Ella Watson-Stryker, 34, health promoter with MSF. 5. Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, physician with Samaritan’s Purse.
