Wichita ? Even though her husband might have contracted SARS during their recent trip to China to adopt a daughter, a Kansas woman is committed to returning to the Asian nation this week to assist other adoptive parents.

Mark VanCamp, 49, was quarantined and treated for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, last month after he and his wife, Christie, returned to the United States after picking up their 10-month-old adoptive daughter, ZoraLin.

But Christie VanCamp is going back to China’s Guangdong providence Thursday to help other adoptive parents, many of whom are too frightened by the SARS outbreak to take along family members when traveling to China to adopt their own infants.

“I would love to help out — it is like you are there watching a family being born when they unite these families with their new child,” VanCamp said. “It is so emotional, so special, such a wonderful thing to go through. Having gone through it twice myself, I felt bad for families, because of the SARS scare, not being able to witness that.”

The VanCamp family — including their 3-year-old daughter, RaeAnne, who was adopted from China as a baby — were in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong providence, in late February. While there Mark VanCamp started feeling ill, but he attributed his breathing problems to humidity and the trip’s pace.

It wasn’t until mid-March, and back home in Wichita, that doctors diagnosed him as potentially suffering from SARS.

So far, 53 people in China have died from SARS, according to a Monday report on state television. That included 43 deaths in Guangdong, where experts suspect SARS originated. More than 2,300 people have been sickened worldwide.

Helping others

On her return trip this week, Christie VanCamp will accompany parents who are adopting Chinese babies through the Massachusetts-based agency China Adoption With Love Inc. The agency paid for her airline ticket back after seeing an interview with the Kansas couple last week on “Good Morning America.”

Lillian Zhang, director of China Adoption With Love, said three of the 15 families scheduled to go to China this week to pick up babies had postponed their trip a month because of SARS. But no one has canceled an adoption planned through the agency — which last year placed 238 Chinese babies with American families — because of concerns about the illness.

“People are not scared by SARS because people who adopt internationally — and from China in particular — are very knowledgeable, very resourceful, very determined,” Zhang said.

Mark and Christie VanCamp adopted their daughters, RaeAnne, 3, left, and ZoraLin, from China. Mark VanCamp was treated for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, last month after he and Christie returned to Wichita after picking up 10-month-old ZoraLin. Christie VanCamp is planning to go back to China Thursday to help other adoptive parents.

But Zhang said she was angry that airlines were not allowing adoptive parents to transfer tickets already purchased for a spouse or child, who are not making the trip because of SARS, to someone else.

Children in danger

“We waited 15 months for a referral for ZoraLin, and I can’t imagine waiting any longer to get her in our arms. … Most people are that way, but they are also frightened to go and bring something home to their family members,” Christie VanCamp said.

Families are also worried the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou — where all the visas are issued for adopted Chinese infants — could be closed down entirely, she said.

“That is like chopping a limb off — having a child somewhere where you can’t go and get them and bring them home,” Christie VanCamp said. “SARS is scary enough — but to think you have a child waiting for you in China that could come in contact with it and possibly contract it and die before you can get to her is scary too.”

Initially, Mark VanCamp was diagnosed with pneumonia and sent home with antibiotics after visiting a doctor in Wichita on March 11. At the same time, Christie VanCamp heard about SARS on the Internet from a news group of other adoptive parents. Her husband fit all the symptoms.

On March 19, with his condition worsening, the couple went to the emergency room at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis. While there, she got a call on her cell phone from the Sedgwick County Health Department telling them the CDC wanted him quarantined.

“The next thing I know, I am in a negative pressure room in Via Christi and everyone is wearing masks around me,” Mark VanCamp said.

Doctors also drained about 20 ounces of fluid from his lungs, and he was released a few days later.

“I was shocked when they showed me those jars filled with fluid — that I could walk around with that much fluid in my lungs and not be dead,” he said. “That was the first time I realized this thing could have killed me.”

His case has yet to be definitely diagnosed as SARS by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said. No one else in the family has gotten ill.