TIME magazine has announced its 2014 Person of the Year, and the award goes, not to an individual, but a group of people, many of whom are anonymous: the Ebola fighters. According to TIME, the title Person of the Year goes to a group or individual who has had the biggest impact on the news and the world over the previous year.

The cover of TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year issue was revealed on the TODAY show on Wednesday. Rather than a single version, there are multiple covers, each of which highlights a different Ebola fighter chosen to represent the group. Those featured for the five different covers include Dr. Jerry Brown, Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, nurse aide and survivor Salome Karwah, survivor and ambulance team member Foday Galla and Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) volunteer health promoter Ella Watson-Stryker.

Ebola continues to rage in West Africa, and first responders, nurses, doctors and ambulance drivers continue to play an integral part in the fight against the spread of the disease. There have been more than 17,000 cases of Ebola in this outbreak, with more than 6,000 deaths.

TIME explains its decision in an essay by editor Nancy Gibbs, who wrote that the award is to honor the people in the field who are battling the epidemic. She said the global health system is not strong enough to protect us (meaning everyone, not just those in third-world countries) from infectious disease, and the world can sleep at night because a group of brave men and woman are willing to stand and fight against the disease. “For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for rising, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year.”

Ambulance driver Foday Gallah was photographed comforting a sick child in his arms. He contracted the disease after the child vomited on him. Photographer Jackie Nickerson said Gallah is a “shining example” of the right thing to do. Gallah calls his immunity “a holy gift,” and wants to donate blood so that other people can be saved. He says he is going to fight Ebola with all of his might.

Liberian surgeon Dr. Jerry Brown converted his hospital’s chapel into one of Liberia’s first treatment center, an isolation ward in a country where no hospital had such a facility. He trained staff and stocked bleach and other supplies, trying to control the spread of the disease. .

Survivor Salome Karwah lost both parents to Ebola, and then took on the task of counseling Liberian patients. She stayed at patients’ bedsides, feeding and bathing them. She said it looked like God had given her a second chance to help others.

Ella Watson-Stryker is an MSF health promoter who has been in West Africa since March. She was part of a team that encountered a local Guinea population that was hostile to outsiders. The team had to fight suspicion, superstition and potential panic to try and control the spread of the virus.

Dr. Keith Brantley, the first American infected with the virus, contracted Ebola while running a Monrovian treatment center, exposed to the disease while performing triage in the emergency room of The Eternal love Winning Africa (ELWA) hospital . He also sees survival as an “incredible opportunity for redemption,” and looks for how he can be better because of what he has been through.

Other influential newsmakers considered for the award included the Ferguson protesters, Taylor Swift, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Vladimir Putin. Pope Francis received the title in 2013. Magazine readers voted for the award to go to Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, but TIME editors made the decision that the Ebola fighters most “embodied what was important about the year.”