Dr. Andrea A Kovacs, MD

Dr. Kovacs is a Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology at USC Keck School of Medicine, and is currently head of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at LAC+USC Medical Center. Dr. Kovacs is a board certified pediatric infectious disease specialist with expertise in the clinical management of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases seen in women, children and adolescents. Her major area of research is the pathogenesis, transmission and treatment of HIV and associated co-infections.

Dr. Kovacs is the principal investigator of USC's unit of the NIH, NICHD funded International Pediatric and Perinatal HIV Studies Network, which performs clinical HIV/AIDS trials in pregnant women, youth, infants and children. Dr. Kovacs is active in other HIV-related research, including the WomenÂ’s Interagency HIV Study and other national collaborative HIV studies. She directs the MCA Research Virology laboratory, a lab certified by the NIH and the CDC to perform clinical …trials and natural history studies as part of these large collaborative trials. In addition, she also conducts her own investigator-initiated clinical and laboratory-based studies, including a perinatal transmission study and a natural history study evaluating the effect of hepatitis C virus on HIV disease progression funded by NIH. Dr. Kovacs has extensive experience in conducting intensive studies of HIV-1 pathogenesis and treatment in women and children. She has authored over 105 peer review publications and over 120 other publications, abstracts and book chapters. She has also been active in the development of local, state and national guidelines for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV in children and developing county and state guidelines for HIV testing of pregnant women.