Worshippers in Rio de Janeiro asked for relief from the coronavirus on Tuesday as they took part in a traditional ritual honouring the sea goddess Yemanja.
Normally, followers of the Afro-Brazilian Candomble and Umbanda faiths express their personal wishes and hopes for the new year during the annual event.
But this year's ceremony was overshadowed by a pandemic which has brought great suffering to Brazil.
COVID-19 has sickened more than 7.5 million Brazilians and killed more than 190,000, the third-highest number in the world.
One of the priests attending the ritual said he had called on the natural forces of Yemanja "to give us a cure, a cure for our Brazil".
The priests and worshippers, many dressed in white, chanted and sang traditional songs and incantations during the ritual.
Later, they launched their offerings and written messages to the goddess into the sea at Copacabana Beach.
Candomble and Umbanda are syncretic Afro-Brazilian religions, developed by slaves when Portuguese colonisers forcibly converted them to Catholicism.