Medical personnel unload equipment off a jet at Centennial Airport today in Centennial, Colo., after it arrived with the man from Atlanta diagnosed with tuberculosis aboard. The patient, under the first federal quarantine since 1963, was to be taken to a Denver facility that specializes in respiratory disorders. AP Photo/Rocky Mountain News, George Kochaniec Jr.   This undated photo released today by the University of Georgia School of Law shows from left, Andrew Speaker, Joshua Belinfante, Kellie Casey, Nicholas Walter and Megan Jones at the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, Ga. Speaker, 31, has a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis that has proved resistant to drugs. This photo appeared in the Spring/Summer 2003 Advocate, the school magazine. Speaker, Belinfante, Walter and Jones were the National Champions in the National Criminal Justice Mock Trial Advocacy Competition. AP Photo/University of Georgia School of Law

The father-in-law, Bob Cooksey, would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to federal health authorities. He said only that he gave 31-year-old Andrew Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.

The CDC had no immediate comment.

"I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically," Cooksey told The Associated Press. "Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel."

The son-in-law said in a newspaper interview that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he did not find out until he was already in Rome that it was an extensively drug-resistant strain considered especially dangerous.

Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment, fearing he wouldn't survive if he didn't reach the U.S., he said.

He was quarantined in the first such action taken by the federal government since 1963.

MAN ARRIVES IN DENVER FOR TREATMENT

On Thursday, he was flown from Atlanta to Denver, accompanied by his wife and federal marshals, to be treated at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center.

He looked healthy and tan when he arrived, and "he said he still felt fine," hospital spokesman William Allstetter said. The chief of the hospital's infectious disease division said that Speaker is believed to be in the early stages of the disease, and that he is optimistic the patient can be cured.

Doctors planned to begin treating him immediately with two antibiotics, one oral and one intravenous. He also will undergo a test to evaluate how infectious he is and a CT scan and lung X-ray, Allstetter said.

Doctors hope to also determine where he contracted the disease, which has been found around the world and exists in pockets in Russia and Asia.

He will be kept in a special unit with a ventilation system to prevent the escape of germs. "He may not leave that room much for several weeks," Allstetter said.

According to a biography posted on a Web site connected with Speaker's law firm, the young lawyer attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in finance, then attended University of Georgia's law school.

His father, Ted Speaker, unsuccessfully ran for a Fulton County Superior Court judgeship in 2004, the same year his son was admitted into the Georgia Bar.

Andrew Speaker recently moved from an upscale condominium complex in anticipation of his wedding, former neighbors said. He also wrote in an application to become a board member of his condo association that he was going to Vietnam for five weeks as part of the Rotary club to act as an ambassador.

"He's a great guy. Gregarious," said Pam Hood, a former neighbor. "He's a wonderful guy. Just a very, very pleasant man."

OFFICIALS STILL TRYING TO TRACK DOWN PASSENGERS

Health officials in North America and Europe are now trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on the two trans-Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe.

However, other passengers are not considered at high risk of infection because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in the man was low, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.

Among those being tested are more than two dozen University of South Carolina Aiken students, school spokeswoman Jennifer Lake said Thursday. Two were apparently sitting near him, possibly in the same row, she said.

One of those students, Laney Wiggins, said she is awaiting her skin test results, expected Friday.

"I'm very nervous," Wiggins told The (Columbia) State newspaper. "It's kind of sad that this is overshadowing the wonderful time we had in Europe."

'OPTIMISTIC' ABOUT 'UPHILL BATTLE'

Speaker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper.

Dr. Charles Daley, head of the infectious disease division at National Jewish Hospital, said the hospital has treated two other patients with what appears to be the same strain of tuberculosis since 2000, although that strain had not been identified and named at the time. He said the patients had improved enough to be released.

"With drug-resistant tuberculosis, it's quite a challenge to treat this," Daley told CNN on Thursday. "The cure rate that's been reported in other places is very low. It's about 30 percent for XDR-TB."

"This is a different patient, though. We're told that this is very early in the course, and most of the time when we get patients that it's very extensive and very far advanced. So I think we're more optimistic," he said. "We're aiming for cure. We know it's an uphill battle, but we hope to get there."

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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington; Mike Stobbe and Daniel Yee in Atlanta; and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.

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