In Uganda, hypertension and diabetes have only recently been included in the health policy agenda. As they become treatable disorders, they take on more distinct contours in people's minds. This article relates knowledge about these two conditions to health institutions and technology for diagnosing and treating them. The response to the AIDS epidemic in Uganda provides an important context for, and contrast with, the emergence of hypertension and diabetes as social phenomena. Ethnographic fieldwork shows the interplay between experience of these conditions and the political economy of treatability.