In Greece, HIV care is provided through specialised infectious-disease units (Μονάδες Λοιμώξεων) in public hospitals — around twenty of them across the country. With an AMKA, all visits, tests, and antiretroviral medications (ART) are fully covered by the state; you do not pay for consultations, monitoring bloods, or your medication. Positive Voice (positivevoice.gr | Empowerment line: 210 32 34 492, Mon–Fri 10:00–14:00) is the leading association of people living with HIV in Greece and provides advocacy, peer support, and navigation help through every step below.

🩺 The Diagnosis Pathway

If a screening test — at Checkpoint, a hospital, or a private lab — flags a reactive HIV result:

  1. Confirmation: A reactive rapid or self-test is a signal, not a final diagnosis. It must be confirmed by a laboratory blood test (a Western blot / antigen-antibody confirmation). Checkpoint or the testing service will fast-track you toward confirmation rather than leaving you to arrange it alone.
  2. Linkage to a unit: You are referred to one of the infectious disease units (Μονάδες Λοιμώξεων) — Syggros, Evangelismos, Laiko, AHEPA in Thessaloniki, and others. This unit becomes your long-term care home. You do not need a GP referral to be seen.
  3. Baseline workup: At your first appointment the unit takes baseline bloods — CD4 count, viral load, resistance testing, and a general health and co-infection screen (hepatitis, other STIs).
  4. Starting ART: Greek units follow the European "treat-all" approach: everyone diagnosed is started on antiretroviral therapy regardless of CD4 count, and increasingly as soon as possible after diagnosis. Modern ART is usually a single daily tablet with few side effects.

Checkpoint is your navigator. Ath Checkpoint and Thess Checkpoint exist precisely to shorten the gap between a reactive result and being seen at a unit. If you feel lost between steps, call them (210 33 10 400) — linkage-to-care is their core job, not an afterthought.

💊 Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U)

Once you start taking ART daily, the amount of virus in your blood falls, usually reaching undetectable levels within a few months. Your unit confirms this with viral load tests.

Once your viral load has been undetectable consistently, it is medically impossible for you to pass HIV on through sex, even without a condom. This is not a hopeful framing — it is settled science, and it is the foundation of the legal position below. After you are stable and suppressed, monitoring appointments typically space out to roughly every three to six months.

⚖️ 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 below.

There is no HIV-specific criminal law in Greece, and no legal obligation to disclose your status to sexual partners. Historically, general criminal laws (like "bodily harm") were weaponized against people living with HIV, most notoriously in 2012. However, Greek courts have recently begun recognizing modern science: in a landmark 2018 ruling, a defendant was acquitted because their undetectable viral load (U=U) meant transmission was impossible. If you face discrimination or legal threats, Positive Voice (positivevoice.gr) is your primary defender and can provide specialized legal support. The legal position can change, so if you're ever unsure where you stand, get current, confidential advice from them or your clinic's HIV team rather than from apps, partners, or rumour.

🤝 Peer Support & Social Care

The medical side of HIV in Greece is well-handled and free; the psychological and social side is where support matters most, and it is where the NGO network fills the gaps a busy hospital unit can't.

  • Positive Voice: The Greek Association of People Living with HIV. Beyond legal defence, they run peer support, psychosocial counselling, and an empowerment line staffed by people who have been through diagnosis themselves. They also operate Checkpoint testing centres.
  • Checkpoint (Athens & Thessaloniki): Community sexual-health centres that handle testing, linkage to care, and ongoing navigation — a lower-pressure first point of contact than a hospital.
  • Praksis / Positive Voice social services: Practical help with the social fallout of diagnosis — benefits, housing, employment rights, and connecting with others living with HIV.

You do not have to carry a new diagnosis alone or figure the system out from scratch. Reaching out to Positive Voice early tends to make everything that follows easier.

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