The use of incense dates back thousands of years, yet when it comes to incense in American cities these days, I associate it with Indian restaurants, yoga studios and head shops hawking bongs and tie-dye T-shirts. I also think of the glory days of the hippie trail, when young Western kids set off through Asia and, as Rory MacLean writes, “lit sticks of incense, strummed their guitars and read another chapter of Siddhartha, then stepped off the bus to help push the decrepit vehicle over the Hindu Kush.”

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World Travel Watch notes that, although dengue fever cases in Cambodia are down from last year, “the risk is still high in major tourist areas, especially Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat.” Dengue, of course, is spread by mosquitos that are no doubt loving monsoon season in Southeast Asia. How I hate monsoon season. As we’ve noted, dengue is expected to rise around the world as temperatures increase, and dengue should be taken seriously: The less common hemorrhagic dengue can be fatal.

This goes for all of you who rely on Cipro to eradicate the nasty stomach bugs you pick up from undercooked meat in foreign countries: The Food and Drug Administration has ordered drug companies to add a black-box warning, the agency’s strongest warning, to Cipro and other antibiotics due to risk of tendonitis and tendon rupture. If you want the basics in language that you might actually understand, read the report at CNN.

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* Tall, Short Passengers at Greater Risk for Thrombosis

Photo by blmurch via Flickr, (Creative Commons)

That’s what the editor of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases proposes. Such a tax—“less than the cost of a single piña colada!”—would go toward fighting neglected tropical diseases, which are a “high burden” in the region.

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* Dengue Fever, Revisited

Since January, more than 70,000 people have been infected with dengue fever in the Brazilian state of Rio. At least 80 people have died. Now, the growing health crisis is “taking a toll on tourism,” reports the International Herald Tribune. A number of foreign embassies have warned citizens about the outbreak, including the U.S. Embassy. 

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Oh Airborne, you nickel-sized fruit-flavored tablets that dissolve in water and promised to keep me healthy on long flights; you shrewdly marketed vitamins developed by a school teacher who, you say, studied the benefits of herbal therapies used in Eastern Medicine. I saw you displayed near the other vitamins in Trader Joe’s, in your neon-hued boxes. You called out to me and my yearning to stay healthy. I purchased you and drank you up, looking the other way when you left an unappealing algae-like film on the inside of my glass. 

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The Los Angeles Times revisits the rise of dengue fever in Mexico and beyond, casting travel as a primary culprit in its spread: “Thus far, cases of dengue fever in North America have tended to be scattered and affect relatively few people. But increased travel to and from South America, where a resurgence has made dengue widespread, is thought to be boosting the disease’s spread northward. And some experts suspect climate change is aggravating the problem.” Meanwhile, Dengue Fever—the band—continues its ascent, spreading infectious “Cambodian pop rock psychedelic dance party” music throughout the globe.

Related on World Hum:
* Deadly Dengue on the Rise in Mexico

The World Health Organization announced Friday that long-haul travelers’ risk of developing deep vein thrombosis doubles after flights or ground trips in which they’re seated for four hours or more. At greater risk of developing blood clots, according to a study cited by the WHO, are very tall people with cramped leg room—yes, one more reason to love economy class—very short people whose legs don’t reach the floor, the obese and women who take birth control pills. The chances of developing thrombosis are low: roughly one in 6,000 long-haul travelers. 

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The quarantined man infected with a particularly dangerous form of tuberculosis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he “didn’t want to put anybody at risk” by flying to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon and returning to the U.S. for treatment. According to the newspaper, “He questioned why nobody told him to cancel his wedding before he left Atlanta—and why the CDC waited until he was on his honeymoon in Rome to order him into isolation.” The man, who is from the Atlanta area and says he has no symptoms, told the newspaper: “I’m a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person. This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary confinement in Italy thing.”

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It’s being widely reported, but in case you missed it: An unidentified man with a particularly dangerous form of tuberculosis who took two trans-Atlantic flights earlier this month has been quarantined and U.S. health officials are suggesting cabin staff and passengers seated near the man be tested for tuberculosis. According to the AP, “The infected man flew from Atlanta to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385. He returned to North America on May 24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 from Prague to Montreal.” He’s now in isolation in a hospital in Atlanta. It’s the first U.S. government-mandated quarantine in more than 40 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site has a transcript of the agency’s briefing on the case.

Pico Iyer has described jet lag as a “place that no human had ever been until 40 or so years ago and yet, now, a place where more and more of us spend more and more of our lives. It’s not quite a dream state, but it’s certainly not wakefulness, and though it seems as if we’re visiting another continent, there are no maps or guidebooks to this other world. There are not even any clocks.” Yet some are intent on eliminating this place from our collective experience. 

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On the way home from a vacation in New Zealand, Pamela Ferdinand stopped off in the Cook Islands, including Aitutaki. It seemed like an idyllic way to cap off her South Pacific holiday. She didn’t know an outbreak of dengue fever was hitting the region; she knew all too well after she returned home. As she writes in Sunday’s Washington Post, “The next week I lay in torment at my home in Cambridge, Mass., alternately suffering chills and sweats with excruciating joint pain, bleeding under the skin and severe dehydration that landed me in the hospital for nearly a week.” She recounts her painful recovery—she lost seven pounds along the way—and offers a fine overview of the mosquito-borne illness.

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