An HIV diagnosis in Georgia puts you into a treatment system that works: antiretroviral therapy is provided free through the state programme, care is concentrated in a specialist network, and outcomes are good once you are in it. The catches are two — a residency condition on free treatment, and a legal framework around disclosure that is stricter than the medicine warrants. This is the pathway from diagnosis to stable treatment, and the support around it. For the biology and what U=U means, use the general HIV guides linked at the foot of this page.

🩺 Who Treats You: The AIDS Center Network

HIV care runs through the Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Center (the Tengiz Tsertsvadze Center) at Lubliana Street #70, Tbilisi, and its three regional branches in Kutaisi, Batumi and Zugdidi. After a confirmed positive result — often flagged first by a community checkpoint and confirmed here — you are referred into this network and assigned a doctor who manages your treatment ongoing. This is where the national ART programme lives; a general clinic is not the route.

💊 The Cost and the Residency Condition

  • Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is free through the state HIV programme, funded by the state and international donors (principally the Global Fund). For eligible people there is no charge for the medication.
  • The condition: free treatment requires a residence permit or refugee-status confirmation. Georgian citizens and legal residents access it on the same terms; a foreigner without a residence permit falls outside the programme, though in some cases a tourist can get one month of ART free while paying for the CD4 and viral-load tests.

If you are a foreigner living here, sorting your residence permit is the single most important step for securing free lifelong treatment. Raise it with the AIDS Center's social worker early — they deal with this constantly and can tell you exactly what your status entitles you to.

💙 U=U

An undetectable viral load means HIV cannot be transmitted sexually — this is settled science, and once you are stable on ART and undetectable, you cannot pass HIV to a partner. It underpins everything below, and the U=U guide linked at the foot of this page explains what "undetectable" means and the timeline to get there. It is the most important thing to hold onto after a diagnosis.

⚖️ Disclosure & the Law

U=U is the medical baseline. On treatment with an undetectable viral load, you cannot transmit HIV sexually — this is settled science, and it underpins everything here.

Georgia's legal position, however, is stricter than the science and you should know it plainly:

  • There is an HIV-specific criminal law. Article 131 of the Criminal Code criminalises both creating a threat of intentional infection (exposure) and intentional infection with HIV, with prison terms; Article 132 covers "particularly dangerous infectious diseases" more broadly and, unlike Article 131, does not require proof of intent.
  • There is a positive legal duty to disclose. Under the 1995 Law on HIV Infection/AIDS, a person who knows their status must inform a spouse or sexual partner. That law carries no penalty of its own — but if you do not tell a known partner, your treating institution is legally obliged to notify that partner.
  • U=U is not written into the law as a defence, and proof that you disclosed is not a defence to criminal prosecution. In the handful of prosecutions to date (all for alleged intentional transmission), courts have inferred intent from a person simply knowing their status and having been warned of transmission risk. Prosecutions have been rare, but the framework exists.

The practical takeaway: get on treatment, get undetectable, and do not take your legal position from apps, partners, or rumour. If you are unsure where you stand, get current, confidential advice from the AIDS Center's HIV team or an HIV organisation — they track the local legal reality and can tell you exactly what applies to you.

🫂 Peer Support and Social Care

You do not have to do this alone. The AIDS Center has social workers attached to HIV care to help with the residence-permit process, treatment logistics, and disclosure decisions. Alongside them:

  • Equality Movement — free psychologist, social worker, and lawyer in a gay-affirming setting; a good first call for the emotional and legal side.
  • Tanadgoma — counselling and peer support through its community centres.
  • Georgian PLHIV networks — peer organisations of people living with HIV provide connection and practical navigation; ask the AIDS Center social worker to point you to a current one.

The mental-health guide below covers affirming support for the emotional weight of a new diagnosis, which is often heaviest in the first weeks.

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