What could happen to uncontacted Amazon tribe after they make bizarre move amid expert warning

There could be devastating consequences if an uncontacted tribe living deep within the Amazon rainforest were to mix with other communities.

While the vast majority of the world's population is now hyperconnected thanks to the internet, there are numerous groups of people continuing to live their traditional lifestyles in some of the Earth's most remote regions.

This includes the Mashco Piro people of south-eastern Peru's Amazon rainforests, believed to number 750 people.

For years the Indigenous group of hunter-gathers have lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world and actively avoid contact with outsiders.

However this could be changing.

Earlier this week a report from Survival International revealed that members of the tribe had been spotted on the outskirts of nearby village Nueva Oceania, inhabited by an Indigenous group known as the Yine people.

The tribe choose to live in isolation from the rest of the world (Survival International)

The contact follows on from another sighting reported last year, when images of several Mashco Piro people on a riverbank close to industrial logging sites were published.

Two loggers who entered the tribe's ancestral territory were later killed in a bow and arrow attack.

"It is very worrying; they are in danger," said Enrique Añez, president of the neighbouring Yine people, of the sightings.

What are the dangers of isolated tribes mixing with outsiders?

The importance of Indigenous groups remaining isolated isn't only to do with preserving their culture, as there would also be serious health implications if nearby residents and tourists were to descend on the area.

After most of their lives in complete isolation, the Mashco Piro people do not have the same immunity as you or I when it comes to diseases.

This means an illness as simple as the common cold could prove to be fatal and even decimate the community – as proven by previous attempts of repeated contact between isolated tribes and outsiders.

One example is the Panará people of Brazil.

In the 1970s the Panará were thought to number between 350 and 400 people. However tragedy would befall the community when workers attempted to build a highway straight through their ancestral lands.

Following contact with the road workers epidemics of influenza and diarrhoea swept through the community, decimating the population.

Four fifths of the tribe died within eight years.

One Panará leader who survived the outbreak recalled seeing villagers too sick and weak to even bury their dead.

"We were in the village and everybody began to die," he explained (via Survival International).

"Some people went in to the forest and more died there. We were ill and weak and couldn’t even bury our dead.

"They just lay rotting on the ground. The vultures ate everything."