ABSTRACT
This chapter is less a deep analysis of the history of the biomedicalization of the HIV epidemic, but more a genealogy of the emergence of the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets and the subsequent push to end AIDS. It is a necessary chapter to familiarize the reader with the various biomedical turns that have happened within the HIV epidemic and to make it contextually clearer why the very term ‘ending AIDS’ could emerge when it emerged. The chapter maps how the narrative of the end of AIDS has emerged in the last ten to fifteen years and has been entangled with political concerns, economic priorities and innovations in HIV treatment and prevention regimes. It will try to show how the emergence of the discourse on the end of AIDS rests upon several paradoxical tensions, many of which might, in the end, undermine the goal of ending AIDS.
