Depression is the focus of this year's World Health Day.

A Kiwi scientist's research could yield a vaccine against an emerging deadly pathogen.

Unnecessary prescriptions could lead to serious long-term consequences.

Health officials say nations need to take action as bacteria build resistance to drugs.

COMMENT: The Government's plan to clean up waterways is an attempt to look as though action's being taken, when in reality nothing's happening, says Mark Dye.

Kiwis' use of antibiotics has soared, indicating widespread inappropriate use for viral coughs and colds, experts say.

As 2016 draws to a close, the NZ Science Media Centre picked some of the biggest national and international science stories that made headlines

Dentists spell out sugar control policies they say are needed

NZ has the fourth-highest rate of child deaths from assault in the OECD. Simon Collins visited three communities to look for the root causes.

An independent panel of 19 specialists has called for sweeping reforms to ensure there is no repeat of the catastrophe, which killed more than 11,000 people.

A leading Pacific doctor is supporting calls for island countries to consider a fat tax on junk food to tackle the ticking time bomb of obesity in the region.

Food products bearing the Heart Foundation's Tick will once again have to meet sugar content guidelines.

As many as one million people could flee Mosul in northern Iraq if the Iraqi Army, backed by US air strikes, seeks to recapture the city this year, aid agencies have said.

More than 80 New Zealanders have registered their interest in joining the international fight against Ebola, Health Minister Jonathan Coleman says.

Scientists from one of the world's leading institutes of tropical medicine, which first discovered the Ebola virus in the 1970s, flew out to Guinea yesterday to begin ground-breaking research into a possible cure.

The chief of the WHO is blaming profit-driven companies for not finding an Ebola vaccine.

The World Health Organisation bungled efforts to halt the spread of Ebola in West Africa, an internal report revealed Friday.

Experts say the Ebola virus is not more virulent that previous outbreaks, and is actually quite difficult to catch.

The UN's new leader on Ebola says the fight against the epidemic is a "war" which could take another six months.

An experimental serum treatment on two US missionaries has raised hopes of an effective treatment for the disease after doctors reported a "miraculous" improvement in the health of one of those who contracted the disease.

In an era when the next pandemic can seem just a pathogen away, Ebola still retains a grisly fascination.

Clothing retailer Just Jeans has voluntarily recalled four children's garments containing potentially cancer-causing dyes.

The near eradication of polio is one of the great global public health success stories of the last few decades. So what happened?

The daily allowance for a person's sugar intake should be halved to six teaspoons, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

Kiwis are 'dying from embarrassment' because of a reluctance to speak with doctors about bowel cancer symptoms as NZ tops a report into global bowel cancer rates