THE HAGUE: Danish photographer Mads Nissen won the World Press Photo of the Year Award on Thursday with his picture of a Brazilian nursing home resident hugging a healthcare worker after months in Covid isolation.

The photo captures an embrace between a nurse and 85-year-old Rosa Luiza Lunardi after she spent five months isolated in her Sao Paolo nursing home. The women are separated by a protective plastic sheet to reduce the risk of contagion. Taken in August 2020, the shot first appeared in the Danish daily Politiken, where Nissen is a staff photographer.

“This iconic image of Covid-19 memorialises the most extraordinary moment of our lives, everywhere,” World Press Photo Award jury member Kevin WY Lee said in a statement.

He said the picture showed vulnerability, loss and separation but if “you look at the image long enough, you’ll see wings: a symbol of flight and hope”.

“The First Embrace” won the competition’s main category as well as a prize in the General News - Singles category.

“To me, it’s a story of love and hope in the most difficult times,” Nissen said. It is Nissen’s second World Press win — he scooped first prize in the 2015 competition for his intimate portrayal of a gay couple in Russia.

Italian documentary photographer Antonio Faccilongo won the World Press Photo Story of the Year, a new award introduced in 2019, for his chronicle of love stories set to the backdrop of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Faccilongo’s pictures “shows another side of the long contemporary conflict”, jury member Ahmed Najm said.