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Background: Examination stress is caused by various stressors: the fear of inadequate preparation for the exam and fear of failing it, the need to pass very well in the exam to satisfy the parental and guardian expectation and the extra effort made to work harder, burning the midnight oil over the preparation for the examination. The aim of this study is to use the data of blood pressure to find out the effect of examination stress on the various Nigerian secondary school classes. Method: Quasi experimental research design was used for this study, A sample of (650) respondents was selected using stratified sampling technique. Digital sphygmomanometer was used to measure the actual blood pressure readings of the respondents. The readings were taken twice on each occasion with at least thirty minutes interval in sitting positions. The measurements were carried out three times during the study, two weeks after resumption for the second term of 2017/2018 academic year, two weeks before the second term examination and four weeks after the terminal examination. Results: The results show that the mean systolic blood pressure two weeks before the start of the examination is generally higher for all the classes than their values at the beginning of the term and their values at four weeks after the examination. Since blood pressure increases with stress . Conclusion: examination stress increases towards the start of examination and reduces after it, males and females differ in their experience of stress imposed by academic examination, and blood pressure increases with stress.

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) now known as Covid-19 was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019. The disease rapidly spread to other cities in China and to other parts of the world. The aim of this study is to investigate the contribution which the economic zones and movement of people into the country and from city to city and State to State within the country have on the spread of the disease in Nigeria. Data of the daily update of Covid-19 occurrence in Nigeria as given by the NCDC Covid-19 Situation report were assembled. The data of the first index in each State between February 27 and March 28, 2020 with the status of whether they were from foreign travel or from within the community was compiled. The results show that economic zones and human movement contribute to the early spread of the disease. The initial spatial spread in Nigeria was observed to follow closely behind the test laboratory distribution pattern. This may suggest that samples from the locations far from the laboratories were not obtained, hence the suggestion for early aggressive country-wide-large scale testing to cover almost everyone should be started very early before the spread is everywhere. The test labs should cover the whole country with the tests made free and mandatory to encourage and force people to come out for it and the restriction protocols should strictly be adhered to. The boarders of the country should be closed early to stop further import of the disease from the high risk countries. When the airports are later re-opened, they should not be to the high-risk countries of the disease. There is also a need for a national policy on responding to and managing any future public health crisis such as Covid-19 pandemic before its occurrence. This policy will help the government to know what to start doing quickly when there is any occurrence. Government should also look inward to mobilize the scientists inside the country by providing research grants purposely to combat the pandemic. Such grants will enable our scientists to make their contribution in addition to the ones made by the scientists outside the country.

Background: Stress can raise the blood pressure of a subject and a number of environmental factors can change that level of the stress, especially the examination stress. These factors which include gender and religion are referred to as modifiers of stress. Objective: This study was therefore designed, using data of blood pressure, to understand the influence of religion and gender on the effect of examination stress on blood pressure of the secondary school students in South Western (SW) Nigeria. Methodology: The population of the study comprises all the students of Oroke Grammar School, Akungba Akoko (650) out of which a sample of 351 that satisfied our criteria was selected, using purposive sampling technique. Digital sphygmomanometer was used to measure the actual blood pressure readings of the respondents twice on each occasion and with at least thirty minutes interval in sitting positions. The measurements were carried out three times during the study, two weeks after resumption for the second term of the 2017/2018 academic year, two weeks before the second term examination and two weeks after resumption for the third term. Results: In this work, a rule of thumb was used to connect the perceived stress (PS) and the % change in the systolic blood pressure (SBP) when a subject is stressed, as PS=100/(% change in SBP). The results show that the group of female students in the general population always feels more stressed than their male counterpart, and respectively in the Islam religion and in the Christian religion always feels more stressed than their respective male counterparts. Also the groups of male and the female students in the Islam religion always feel more stressed than their groups of male and female students in the Christian religion Conclusion: Gender and religion were found to affect the level of perceived stress of the students. It was recommended that male students should be encouraged to go for regular blood pressure checkups as they are more likely not to feel stressed even when their blood pressure has increased much above the normal. This is one of the measurements the health personnel should do whenever a male student in particular is in the health centre. Because the number of Christian students in this work is much larger than the number of Muslim students, more research is needed with comparable number of students in each religious group to further understand how religious practices play a role in perceived stress of college students. Future research should include more variables that influence coping methods and parental influence and guidance.  

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