No country met WHO air quality standards in 2021, new report says Bangladesh remained the most polluted country, and New Delhi continued as the world’s most polluted capital, the data showed. NBC News

SHANGHAI — Not a single country managed to meet the World Health Organization’s air quality standard in 2021, a survey of pollution data in 6,475 cities showed on Tuesday, and smog even rebounded in some regions after a COVID-related dip.

Asia's COVID deaths surpass 1 million - Reuters tally Asia passed the grim milestone of 1 million coronavirus-linked deaths on Friday, a Reuters tally showed, as a spike in Omicron variant infections spreads across the region after starting in nations such as Japan and South Korea. Aparupa Mazumder,Lasya Priya M Reuters

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A new, low-cost Texas Children’s Hospital vaccine gets approval for use in India

A COVID-19 vaccine created at the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development in Houston has received emergency use authorization in India, after nearly 10 years of research and funding obstacles in 2020.

The goal is to make the vaccine – called Corbevax – available in other low- and middle-income nations across the globe to help prevent future variants of concern from forming.

“As long as we leave the southern hemisphere unvaccinated new variants of concern for us will emerge," said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean at Baylor's National School of Tropical Medicine. “The only way to stop it is to vaccinate the world and we think our [vaccine] is going to be a major contributor to that."