An American lawyer who was quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis (TB) after returning from his honeymoon in Europe today apologised for exposing his fellow passengers to the disease.

Andrew Speaker, 31, of Atlanta, insisted he has a tape recording of a meeting with health officials that confirms it was acceptable for him to travel.

But speaking through a face mask in his hospital room in Denver, Colorado, he told ABC’s Good Morning America programme: “I feel awful.”

“I’ve lived in this state of constant fear and anxiety for a week and to think that someone else now is feeling that, I wouldn’t want anyone to feel that way.

“I don’t expect those people to ever forgive me. I just hope they understand that I truly never meant them any harm.”

Mr Speaker was put into isolation when he returned to America last week from Europe, where he had stops in France, Greece and Italy.

He was told he had TB in January, but doctors did not realise that his strain, known as XDR-TB, was drug-resistant until May.

Mr Speaker then boarded a commercial flight to Paris on May 12, and then subsequently flew to Greece for his wedding and Italy for his honeymoon.

On May 18, he received a call from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advising him not to travel.

Officials said they would rather he did not fly but did not forbid it, he said.

Despite the warning, and a second one from the CDC not to fly on commercial aircraft, Mr Speaker caught a flight to Montreal and then drove across the US border on May 24.

A border inspector who checked him thought a computer warning to stop him was discretionary and disregarded it, officials said.

Mr Speaker said he believed if he did not get to the specialised clinic in Denver, he would die.

“Before I left, I knew that it was made clear to me, that in order to fight this, I had one shot, and that was going to be in Denver,” he said.

He checked into a New York City hospital last Friday and, three days later, was flown on a CDC plane to Atlanta, where he was placed under isolation.

On Wednesday he was flown to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, which specialises in TB treatment. If drugs fail, he could face surgery to remove the diseased tissue.

A hospital spokeswoman said she was “optimistic” about his chances of recovery.

There are about 14,000 cases of TB in the United States every year, but there have been only 49 cases of extensively drug-resistant TB reported between 1993 and 2006.

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