BRASILIA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Health Ministry on Friday confirmed the country's first case of reinfection with a new variant of the COVID-19, detected in the northern state of Amazonas.

The Brazilian Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the largest medical research center in Latin America, on Jan. 12 identified a new variant of the COVID-19 in a 29-year-old woman with mild symptoms of the disease, the ministry said in a statement.

The woman had been diagnosed with the disease for the first time on March 24 and nine months later, on Dec. 30, she tested positive again.

"The second analysis carried out showed a pattern of mutations compatible with the SARS-CoV-2 virus variant recently identified by Japan's Health Ministry, but originating in the Amazon," the ministry said.

"In Brazil, two cases of reinfection by a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 have been reported so far, one in the state of Bahia with the mutation identified in South Africa that is still under investigation, and the other already confirmed in Amazonas with the Amazonian variant initially identified in Japan," said the ministry.

The cases are under the supervision of teams from the Health Ministry, and experts from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the health ministry, some 8,324,294 people in Brazil have tested positive for COVID-19, out of which 7,339,703 have recovered and 207,095 have died.