Roy Mugerwa

Roy D. Mugerwa, (2 January 1942–19 April 2019), was a Ugandan physician, cardiologist and researcher, who at the time of his death, was a Professor Emeritus, at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, in Kampala, Uganda's capital city.

He was born on 2 January 1942, in present-day Bukomansimbi District, in the Buganda Region of Uganda. His parents were Yowana Ziryawula and Maria Namatovu.

Mugerwa attended St. Mary's College Kisubi for both his O-Level and A-Level education. He was then admitted to Makerere University, Uganda's oldest and largest public university, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree. Later, the same university awarded him a Master of Medicine in Internal Medicine. He also undertook further studies in the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Mugerwa's initial specialization was cardiology. He began lecturing at Makerere University School of Medicine, soon after his master's degree, rising through the ranks to Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and eventually full Professor. He is credited with being one of the first researchers trained to run the Mulago Cardiac Clinic, in the 1970s. This clinic is the precursor of the present-day Uganda Heart Institute, of which Roy Mugerwa served as the Executive Director, from 1998 until 2008.

However, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic engulfed Uganda during the 1980s and 1990s, Dr Mugerwa was one of the early researches who responded to the crisis. He wasintimately involved in the early clinical trials during the 1990s in Uganda. His scope of research included tuberculosis and other opportunistic infections that afflict HIV/AIDS patients. Dr Mugerwa was a member of the Academic Alliance that established Uganda's Infectious Diseases Institute, in 2002.

Dr Mugerwa was survived by eleven children. His wife had preceded him in death, in November 2018.

He died on Friday 19 April 2019 at Nakasero Hospital in Kampala. Burial is planned on Saturday 27 April 2019 at Meru Village, Butenga sub-county, Bukomansimbi District, in Southwestern Uganda.