Surkhet, July 16 -- year-old Dhanlal BK had walked four days with his father to reach the mountain meadows of Nawar Pani in Nepal's Dolpa district in the third week of May.

Like thousands of others from impoverished mountain communities, the teenager had travelled to collect yarsagumba, a prized medicinal fungus known for its aphrodisiac properties and often dubbed 'Himalayan Viagra'.

But he never made it back.

"He got sick the very day we reached there," his father, Hari Bahadur BK, said. "He couldn't collect a single yarsa. We returned with some yarsagumba-but not with my son."

The family's home in Jajarkot had collapsed during the November 2023 earthquake, forcing them to live in a makeshift shelter. Farming barely sustained them f...