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Time names Ebola fighters as its 2014 Person of the Year

'Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one,' editor writes

Time names Ebola fighters as its 2014 Person of the Year

Time magazine named Ebola fighters as its 2014 Person of the Year.

"Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one," Time magazine editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs wrote in an editor's note. "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.”

For the issue, the magazine published five covers featuring different Ebola fighters.

Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the American health care workers who contracted Ebola while fighting the outbreak in West Africa, was one of them.

Brantly called the selection a "huge honor" in an ongoing battle.

"Ebola fighters are not people who did something courageous," Brantly said on the "Today" show, where Time unveiled its Person of the Year. "They are still in the trenches fighting."

"Ebola is a war, and a warning," Gibbs continued. "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."

"I have witnessed the devastation Ebola causes and have personally experienced the stigma that fear of this disease brings," Kaci Hickox, the Maine nurse who stirred controversy after she was ordered quarantined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie upon her arrival in Newark with a slight fever, said in the magazine. "Still, I hope that compassion and knowledge will soon overcome the fear so that we can beat Ebola."

Finalists for the annual title — given to “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year” — included Ferguson protesters, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Taylor Swift, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, Apple chief Tim Cook, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Masoud Barzani, the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region.

Pope Francis was Time's Person of the Year in 2013. In 2012, it was President Barack Obama.

The top 5 persons of the year for 2014, according to the magazine:

1. Ebola fighters
2. Ferguson protesters
3. Vladimir Putin
4. Masoud Barzani
5. Jack Ma