2014 Best In Show
Winner: John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Liberia Ebola - Umu Fambulle stands over her husband Ibrahim after he staggered and fell, knocking him unconscious in an Ebola ward on August 15, 2014 in the West Point township of Monrovia, Liberia. People suspected of contracting the Ebola virus were being sent by Liberian health workers for observation at the holding center, a closed elementary school with no electricity, running water, or medication for treatment. As the spread of the Ebola epidemic accelerated last summer, Liberia's national health system collapsed, and most hospitals and clinics closed. The government tried to quarantine the congested township of West Point with the Liberian Army, and had to lift it 10 days later in failure. Thousands of people died before international aid organizations had built Ebola treatment centers with enough to care for the sick. Liberians watched as health care workers in hazmat suits carried away their loved ones for cremation, a practice foreign to Liberia and traumatic for surviving family members. As the year wore on, the end of the epidemic was no where in sight.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Batu Flowers tries to convince local residents that the Ebola epidemic is real on August 16, 2014 in the West Point townshiop of Monrovia, Liberia. Many Liberians believed that the epidemic was a fraud and that people were dying from other causes, a suspicion fueled by lack of testing of Ebola victims.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A man carries out a girl from an Ebola isolation center as a mob overruns the facility in the West Point slum on August 16, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. A crowd of several hundred people, chanting, "No Ebola in West Point," crashed through the gates and took out the patients, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. The center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian Health Ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Local residents gather around Saah Exco, 10, dehydrated and weak, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The boy had been pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients when the facility was overrun by a mob on Saturday. A local clinic then refused to treat the boy, according to residents, because of the danger of infection, although the boy was never tested for Ebola.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Liberian Army soldier, part of Liberia's Ebola Task Force, beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The government ordered the quarantine of West Point, a congested seaside slum of 75,000, in an effort to stop the spread of the virus in the capital city. The quarantine proved impossible to enforce and was lifted after 10 days.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
An Ebola tracing coordinator checks the temperature of Benson, 2 months, finding her to have a fever of 100.76F (38.2C) in the West Point neighborhood on October 17, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Health workers later came to take the baby, his mother and grandmother to a holding center for people suspected of having Ebola. A family member living in the home had died only the day before from Ebola.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Liberian burial team prays disinfectant over the body of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus on August 14, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The burial teams dressed in protective clothing, known as personal protective equipment (PPE), to avoid contact with the highly contagious bodily fluids of Ebola victims.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Sophia Doe sits with her grandchildren, while watching the arrival an Ebola burial team to take away the body of her daughter for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The children seen in the photo are daughters of the deceased. The woman died outside her home earlier in the morning while trying to leave her home and walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation even more traumatic for surviving family members.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads the bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pire at a crematorium on August 22, 2014 in Marshall, Liberia. The Ebola virus is most contagious in the corpses of the recently deceased, and the Liberian government ordered that all victims in the capital city be cremated.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on October 5, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia. The girl and her mother, showing symptoms of the deadly disease, were awaiting test results for the virus.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A health worker takes the temperature of U.S. Marines arriving to take part in Operation United Assistance on October 9, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia. Some 90 Marines landed on KC-130 transport planes and MV-22 Ospreys to support the American effort to contain the Ebola epidemic. U.S. President Barack Obama committed up to 4,000 troops in West Africa to combat the disease.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A woman crawls towards the body of her sister as Ebola burial team members take her for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The woman had died outside her home earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation all the more traumatic for surviving family members.
John Moore / Getty Images