Lying still on his cot, with thoughts of a slow but certain early death weighing heavy on his mind, 56-year-old Vinod Besra is one of the oldest living members in Bihar's Doodh Paniya village in Munger district. Besra had been bedridden since 2019, watching his body fail him by the day.

Besra is not the only one. In this village of not more than 250 people, residents rarely make it past 40. Tucked into the lush greens and surrounded by the hills, once afraid of insurgency, this Naxal-affected village in Munger's Haveli Kharagpur block is now engulfed by an unrecognisable disease unheard of in modern India.

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For the tribal people living here, life has become a curse because of a disease. Many are confined to their beds, struggling to breathe. Twenty-five per cent of the villagers are forced to walk with sticks due to leg and back pain. Vinod Besra, 56 years.

"My whole body is gradually failing," Besra told India Today TV's sister channel, Aaj Tak, as our team leaned in to understand the doom that has befallen this hidden land. "I am 56-years-old, and I have been living like this since 2019. I cannot even step outside my house," he said.

"I received treatment in multiple places up to Patna, but there was no improvement. Once, I had a minor leg injury and recovered, but after that, my legs and back slowly stopped functioning. Doctors only prescribed medicines, but nothing helped," he added.

What worried him more was the condition of his family treading towards the same fate.