TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year:

The Ebola Fighters

They risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved.

Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but rather the hero’s heart.

Featured on the covers: Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, Dr. Jerry Brown, nurse aide and survivor Salome Karwah, MSF volunteer health promoter Ella Watson-Stryker, and ambulance team supervisor and survivor Foday Galla.

For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure.

But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time 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.

One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one.

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.

Nancy Gibbs

Behind TIME’s Person of the Year Ebola Fighters Cover

Five images that define the fight against the deadly virus

Dr. Jerry Brown, 46, medical director and surgeon in Monrovia, Liberia

“There was a kind of gravity to the way Dr. Jerry Brown and his staff were working,” says Nickerson. “When we met Dr. Brown, we had the idea to do something very simple against a plain color, something of a more formal portrait. And then, he invited us to go into the Ebola Treatment Unit, into the reception area where he gets dressed. It was a very simple, bare room. It had a single light bulb, and I just thought it captured the atmosphere and gravity of what they were doing.” Photograph by Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Salome Karwah, 26, caregiver at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic in Monrovia

“She’s an [Ebola] survivor and an incredibly brave woman,” says Nickerson. “When we met Salome, she was a typical young woman, she was all dressed up, she had jewelry on and she was a little nervous about having her picture taken. But then, she put her scrubs…she became very calm, a little bit introverted. She showed me where she worked in the Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) compound. We just wanted a plain background, so we came out of the dressing room and [this shot was taken] right there.” Photograph by Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, physician with Samaritan’s Purse

“Kent was working in West Africa doing a lot of hard, selfless work to help people out,” says Schutmaat. “I met at his church in Fort Worth, Texas. TIME’s photo editors and I felt that since he was a man of faith and since he was guided by that faith, it would be good to photograph him in there. And while the portrait is very formal, the whole meeting was very informal. We talked a bit, tried a number of different set-ups using natural light. I had no inclination to shoot for the cover. I was just shooting how I normally would shoot.” Photograph by Bryan Schutmaat for Time

Ella Watson-Stryker, 34, health promoter with MSF

“We took this picture very early in the morning, because everybody at MSF is incredibly busy, everybody is doing very important work,” says Nickerson. “And here we are, we come along and we’re trying to take them away from their important job. It literally took us 10 minutes to do that shot; and she was distracted, she wanted to do other things. What I love about that picture is the fact that it’s just her. She’s not trying to be anybody else. She’s just standing there because I have to take her picture. And she’s a very attractive person, but you can see the tightness in her face because she’s been working in Liberia and Sierra Leone as well. She’s had a long run of it.” Photograph by Jackie

Nickerson for TIME

Foday Gallah, 37, ambulance supervisor in Monrovia

“Foday’s story is heartbreaking,” says Nickerson. “He contracted Ebola when he was trying to comfort a young kid, who was incredibly distressed. ‘I just had to pick the kid up and comfort him,’ he told us. Of course, he got vomit all over him and that’s how he got Ebola. He’s the shinning example of what the right thing to do is. He’s a shinning example that we should all try to follow. He really did touch me with his story. I don’t usually like to use the word hero, but I have to use it here.” Photograph by Jackie Nickerson for

TIME

The Ebola FightersThe Doctors

Dr. Kent Brantly, 33 Physician with Samaritan’s Purse, Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

Dr. Jerry Brown, 46 Medical director and general surgeon at the Eternal Love Winning Africa [ELWA] Hospital in Monrovia and director of the ELWA 2 Ebola treatment center, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Dr. Mosoka Fallah, 44 An American-educated Liberian infectious-disease expert who returned to his country last year to help establish a school of public health and now leads the effort to find, monitor and isolate the contacts of Ebola victims, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Dr. Philip Ireland, 44 Liberian doctor at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia’s largest hospital, Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

Dr. Bruce Ribner, 69 Medical director of Emory University Hospital’s Serious Communicable Disease Unit in Atlanta, Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

The Ebola FightersThe Caregivers

Foday Gallah, 37 Ambulance supervisor, Monrovia, and Ebola survivor, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Morris Kanneh, 45 Driver for the Liberian Red Cross dead-body-management team in Monrovia,Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Salome Karwah, 26 Nurse’s assistant at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic in Monrovia and an Ebola survivor, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Katie Meyler, 32 Founder of More Than Me, a school for vulnerable girls from the West Point slum in Monrovia, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Nelson Sayon, 29 Worker with the Liberian Red Cross body-management team, Monrovia, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Ella Watson-Stryker, 34 Health promoter with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Nancy Writebol, 59 Missionary serving with SIM, Rajah Bose—The New York Times/Redux

The Ebola FightersThe Nurses

Kaci Hickox, 33 Nurse with MSF quarantined in U.S., Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

Iris Martor, 32 Nurse at the More Than Me Academy, a school for vulnerable girls from the West Point slum of Monrovia, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Nina Pham, 26 Nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, From left: Amber Vinson and Nina PhamBryan Schutmaat for TIME

The Ebola FightersThe Scientists

Thomas Geisbert, 52 Virologist who conducted the first trials of the drug TKM-Ebola, Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

Dr. Peter Piot, 65 Co-discoverer of Ebola, Bryan Schutmaat for TIME

Dr. Pardis Sabeti, 38 Geneticist who sequenced the Ebola genome from the outbreak, Jackie Nickerson for TIME

Scenes From Monrovia, Liberia

Jackie Nickerson For Time

Sterilization area with bleach solution at the Eternal Love Winning Africa Hospital's Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia.

Liberian Red Cross dead body management team photographed at the ELWA Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia.

Sterilized rubber gloves at ELWA's Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia.

Sterilized protective clothing drying station at Doctors Without Borders’ Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia.

An education mural in Monrovia, Liberia.

The chapel which was converted into the first Ebola treatment unit at ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.

Any PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that cannot be sterilized and reused is burned at ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.

Scenes From Monrovia, LiberiaA Photographer is Covering Ebola’s Deadly Spread

Daniel Berehulak, The New York Times/Redux

Members of a Liberian Red Cross burial team, under contract from the Liberian Ministry of Health, remove the body of suspected Ebola victim Lorpu David, 30, on Sept. 18, 2014, in the Gurley street community in central Monrovia, Liberia

Members of a Liberian Red Cross burial team, under contract from the Liberian Ministry of Health, remove the body of suspected Ebola victim Lorpu David, 30, on Sept. 18, 2014, in the Gurley street community in central Monrovia, Liberia

A burial team collects the body of a 75-year-old woman in a neighborhood called PHP in Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 18, 2014.

A resident of the West Point neighborhood covers his nose as a burial team leaves with a body in Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 17, 2014.

Members of a burial team from the Liberian Red Cross remove the body of a man, a suspected Ebola victim, from a home in Matadi on Sept. 17, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

A member of a Liberian Red Cross burial team is disinfected, with chlorine sprayed on by a colleague, after having removed the body of a man, a suspected Ebola victim, on Sept. 6, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

Residents look on as the body of a man suspected of dying from Ebola lies in a busy street after it was reportedly dragged there to draw the attention of burial teams. For several days, his family had asked for the body to be picked up, to no avail. Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 15, 2014.

Friends and relatives weep as a burial team removes the body of a 75-year-old woman. Her neighbors insisted she had died of a stroke. Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 18, 2014.

Eric Gweah, 25, grieves as he watches members of a Red Cross burial team carry the body his father, Ofori Gweah, 62, a suspected Ebola victim, in a riverside area called Rock Spring Valley in central Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 18, 2014. Ofori Gweah had endured Ebolaís telltale symptoms for six days, his family took him to treatment centers twice, only to be turned back. So many Ebola victims are dying at home due to a severe shortage of treatment centers in Monrovia, and many of the ill are infecting family members, neighbors and others in a ballooning circle of contagion.

Residents discuss an Ebola awareness campaign in Monrovia, Liberia, Aug. 30, 2014

James Dorbor, 8, suspected to have Ebola, lays on the ground as his father Edward tried to get the boy to drink coconut water. They waited for James to be admitted into the JFK Ebola treatment center on Sept. 5, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

Edward Dorbor reacts after believing that his son, James Dorbor, 8, had died. However, the boy survived for a few additional hours before dying at the JFK Ebola treatment center on Sept. 5, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

Medical staff rush into the treatment facility, carrying James Dorbor, 8, suspected of having Ebola. Since the health workers weren't wearing the appropriate protection against Ebola, they positioned James' body in a way to limit exposure to the deadly virus. Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 5, 2014

A relative grieves as members of a Liberian Red Cross burial team dress themselves in full protective clothing prior to removing the body of suspected Ebola victim, Ofori Gweah, 62, on Sept. 18, 2014 in central Monrovia, Liberia.

Medical staff spray down a small plastic bag containing the blood sample of Hawa Konneh, 9, a suspected Ebola victim, as she lays on the dirt wrapped in a shawl in front of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Ebola treatment center, as her mother, Masogbe, sits near to her prior to Hawa's passing away on Sept. 4, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

Residents of the West Point neighborhood attend church after a 10-day quarantine was lifted in Monrovia, Liberia, Aug. 31, 2014.

Behind the Scenes of TIME’s Person of the Year Photoshoot in Liberia

end

Photographer Jackie Nickerson photographs nurse Salome Karwah in Monrovia, Liberia on Nov. 26, 2014 Paul Moakley

TIME’s Africa Bureau Chief Aryn Baker (right) in Monrovia, Liberia Jackie Nickerson for TIME

TIME’s Deputy Director of Photography Paul Moakley (right) and TIME’s Africa Bureau Chief Aryn Baker in Monrovia, LiberiaJackie Nickerson for TIME

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