chh@heraldsun.com; 918-1035
CHAPEL HILL -- A little girl born in Ethiopia slept all alone for the first time last Sunday. There was no sound of coughing from other children in the orphanage or whispers from her Italian grandparents.
Tsehaynesh, who had been adopted in June by Marily Nixon and Luca Rigotti of Chapel Hill, was finally home in the room that had been lovingly prepared by her expectant parents so many months ago.
"Tutto io?" Tsehaynesh had asked in Italian when she first saw the room. Her parents confirmed that everything inside was all hers.
"We had taped a photograph of her on the door, so she knew it was her room. When she opened the door, she was wide-eyed. She walked around the room touching things -- toys, clothes, pillows -- and occasionally picking something up and putting it back neatly," said Nixon.
This homecoming should have happened months ago, but a policy instituted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prohibited the family from entering the United States. Though this policy, known as the "2007 Technical Instructions for Tuberculosis Screening and Treatment for Panel Physicians," was created to help reduce the number of immigrants with tuberculosis entering the U.S., it seemed medically unfounded, as experts argued that children diagnosed with TB are rarely contagious.
"Tuberculosis in children is a fundamentally different disease than TB in adults," explained Jeffrey Starke, a physician and the nation's leading tuberculosis expert. "In children, we really have to go out of our way to find the TB germ, which tells us TB in children is not the same as it is in adults and is not contagious."
Despite this information, the CDC policy mandated that Nixon and Rigotti be prohibited from bringing their new daughter home when she had a positive skin TB test and suspicious chest x-ray. Instead, Tsehaynesh was required to undergo sputum culture testing, which can take eight to 10 weeks for results.
Rather than spend months in Ethiopia with little access to health care or other necessities, Luca Rigotti, a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, decided to call upon his native Italy, where he still held citizenship. The Italian government quickly welcomed the family.
"It was truly frightening to find ourselves barred from re-entry to the United States. Again and again, many government representatives were unavailable, would not call us back or respond to e-mails, or were uninformed or unwilling to help us resolve our case. It was a disillusioning experience to find out that when you are caught overseas, you cannot rely on the Department of State to help you get ... home," said Nixon.
"What got us through this experience, and finally got us home, was the help of several wonderful people whom we had never met before," she said.
Among those that did offer help was N.C. Rep. David Price.
"I was happy to do whatever I could to keep the lines of communication open between the family, governmental agencies and the embassies involved. I have great sympathy for the ordeal the family went through while they were trying to do a wonderful thing in adopting a child," the congressman said.
While many agencies in the adoption community were working diligently to have the policy changed, it did not come quickly enough for Tsehaynesh, who finally received medical clearance to come to the U.S. 2 ½ months after her American parents adopted her.
The CDC policy was amended one day later.
“Since the CDC revised the policy, now children like Tsehaynesh — that is, with no active tuberculosis — will be allowed to come home immediately because they do not pose a health threat to anyone. We hope that our sad and frustrating experience helped pave the way for this huge improvement in U.S. policy, because no family should have to go through what we went through,” said Nixon.
As the family is finally ready to put the crisis behind them and settle into life here, Rigotti reflected on the detour that took him to his native Italy.
“Being home with my family was a great opportunity for Tsehaynesh to bond with my parents, and was a nice way to introduce her to my hometown and the places I love,” he said. “Still, that is not where home is; now, home is in Chapel Hill, and I felt like our family life started only after getting back here.”
As Tsehaynesh happily slept alone in her own room for the very first time as an American citizen, no doubt she would agree.
