“From the beginning, we founded this program on strong scientific research with the patient at the core. Our success in advancing prevention and treatment is due to that focus.”
-Dr. Andrea Kovacs, Executive Director

The MCA Center was founded in 1988 by Dr. Andrea Kovacs. Originally known as the Comprehensive Maternal-Child HIV Management and Research Center, MCA began as a small clinic serving newly infected women and children in the Los Angeles County area. In 1994, the MCA Center relocated to the Health Research Association building, and now includes over two floors of clinical and administrative space, and a certified virology lab.

The MCA Center has a long history of commitment and expertise in serving communities of color, the disenfranchised, immigrants, and the poverty stricken with special needs. Since its founding, the Center has provided medical management and a broad range of ancillary services for all aspects of infectious disease care to over 1600 infants, children, women, and their family members.

MCA is an international model for the care of HIV and other infectious diseases that affect families. State of the art quality care is combined with cutting edge research to provide services to women, children, youth, and families infected and affected by HIV within a culturally sensitive environment. This model of care has resulted in remarkable achievements in infectious disease research and patient care. 

Major Accomplishments:

A new model for clinical care:

• Maintained a state-of-the-art family-centered model of care combining primary care, tertiary care, and research for disenfranchised and traditionally hard-to-reach populations.

• Established ongoing collaborations with clinical scientists, virologists, immunologists, molecular biologists, and behavioral scientists at USC and nationally.

Breakthrough research efforts:

• Engaged and recruited patients into numerous clinical, epidemiological, therapeutic, behavioral, and translational studies.

• Established long-term cohorts of patients for more than 15 years in pathogenesis studies.

Unparalleled success:

• Experienced a 100% success rate in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission since 1996 among women who received prenatal care at MCA.

• Maintained a 90% retention rate in clinical care and research studies.

• Secured NIH funding of over $2,000,000 per year since 1991 to perform complex investigator-initiated clinical and laboratory-based studies.

Raising standards:

• Aided in the development of local and national guidelines for treatment, prophylaxis of children and testing of pregnant women.

• Developed diagnostic tools to identify infected babies and to treat pregnant women in order to prevent transmission.