Maybe you're expecting TIME's Person of the Year to be a business magnate or a president, or a pop star. Well, you're wrong. The publication has decided honor selfless individuals who risked their lives to fight Ebola. They grace the issue's pages and the magazine gave a reason as to the choice.

“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,” the editors note, saying that they risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved.

The Ebola outbreak has killed at least 6,598 people in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization.