His contribution to the world of academics include being a Professor Emeritus at Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, cardiology in Uganda, researching HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, and his efforts to find an effective HIV vaccine.
By 1972, he was one of the first five research fellows to be trained at Mulago Cardiac Clinic, which is the precursor of the present-day Uganda Heart Institute (UHI).
When scientist Wilson Carswell first confirmed there were HIV positive patients in Mulago Hospital in 1984, Dr. Mugerwa was part of a team that joined him as they went Masaka and Rakai and ascertained that the virus had spread there too.
[4] In October 1985, shortly after their Slim Disease publication, Dr. Mugerwa attended a Workshop on AIDS in Central Africa, which was put on by the World Health Organization (WHO).
[5] Dr. Mugerwa, along with two other colleagues, was appointed to Uganda's AIDS Surveillance Sub-Committee, and by 1986 they had succeeded in implementing public health efforts such as educational programs, supplying condoms, and screening potentially infected blood donors.
During this time, he struggled with low access to confirmatory HIV tests, hospital overcrowding, and the challenge of deciding to tell patients they were dying of AIDS, due to the stigma and shame surrounding the disease.
[7] Outside of hospital work, he was one of the founding members of the Uganda-Case Western Reserve University Research Collaboration and held the position of lead principal investigator for twenty years.
[8] At its 20th anniversary celebration, it was stated that the collaboration had provided over fifty Ugandans with upper level degrees, published over two-hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals, and presented at over five-hundred conferences.
In opposition to these denialist claims, over five-thousand scientists signed the Durban Declaration in 2000, which cited multiple studies that link HIV as the only cause of AIDS.