Ebola may have existed

An American weekly newsmagazine, TIME, has named the dead and the living health workers at the frontline of the battle against the Ebola Virus Disease as its 2014 Person of the Year.

 

The naming on Wednesday followed days of anticipation of the keenly competed annual event.

 

“Doctors who wouldn’t quit even as their colleagues fell ill and died, nurses comforting patients while standing in slurries of mud, vomit and faeces. The Ebola fighters are the TIME Person of the Year,’’ declared the magazine’s Managing Editor, Nancy Gibbs.

 

Deciding a person or group of persons who have made the most impact on news headlines around the world every year is a constant challenge to TIME’s editors.

 

“The challenge is that on one hand, we are trying to make a decision about who best represents the news of the year. But the pick also needs to have archival value. You need the sense that it will stand the test of time. So, ideally, we want our Person of the Year to be a snapshot of where the world is and a picture of where it’s going,’’ said deputy managing editor, on the magazine’s website.

 

The Ebola health workers slugged it out with 49 other people and a group of people to come out tops. Runners up include Russian President, Vladimir Putin; acting President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, as well as the Chief Executive of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma.

 

Since the EVD epidemic started in December 2013 in Guinea, the disease, according to the World Health Organisation, has infected 17,800 people and killed 6,300 people across eight countries. A situation report update by WHO, released in October, stated that 450 health workers had been infected. About 250 of them have died.

 

 

Some of the health workers who died in Nigeria included Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh, Amos Abaniwo, Justina Ejelonu and Evelyn Ukoh. 

 

They were all members of staff of the First Consultants Medical Centre, Lagos. Another Port Harcourt-based medical doctor, Iyke Enemuo, also died of the disease.

 

The medical personnel became exposed to the EVD when a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, travelled on a flight from Monrovia, Liberia to Nigeria on July 20 and was subsequently admitted at the FCMC. Unknown to the workers, Sawyer had end-stage Ebola symptoms.

 

Calls by stakeholders on the Federal Government to confer Adadevoh and her colleagues with posthumous national awards have not been successful. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, had said on his twitter handle that, “by the laws establishing it, national awards are not conferred post humously.’’

 

However, institutions and groups have continued to honour the health workers. In October, Baze University, Abuja, conferred a honorary doctorate award on Adadevoh. A non-governmental organisation, Leadership Watch, had also on Friday honoured all Nigerian health workers who died on Ebola war front.

 

Reacting to the news, Afolabi Cardoso, Adadevoh’s son, described the naming of the health workers as its 2014 Person of the Year as great. “It is great, fantastic,’’ he said.

 

Also, the immediate past president, Nigerian Medical Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, said the recognition of Ebola health workers by TIME is a welcome development. Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, Enabulele said it would boost the morale of health workers.

 

“I was happy when I heard the news. It is one way of letting the whole world know that health workers are appreciated. It will motivate other health workers to be more committed to the course of humanity and to continue to render quality health service,’’ he said.

 

The protesters against the shooting of a black unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, by a white policeman, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri, United States of America, also made the list of finalists.

 

The protesters first took to the streets in August after a grand jury declined to press charges against Wilson.

 

The annual “Person of the Year’’ title was born in 1927 when American inventor and explorer, Charles Lindbergh, was not featured on any of TIME’s covers in the year. The decision by the editors to feature him on the cover page, months after Lindbergh made his historic non-stop flight from New York to Paris, and calling him “Man of the Year,”gave birth to the 87-year-old award.

 

BY FOLASHADE ADEBAYO