(CNN) -- The Georgia lawyer whose travel to attend his wedding in Greece set off international health alarms because he has a difficult-to-treat form of tuberculosis was released Thursday from the Denver, Colorado, hospital where he had undergone treatment.
TB patient Andrew Speaker, told he's no longer contagious, is recuperating in Georgia.
National Jewish Medical and Research Center discharged Andrew Speaker, 31, at 6 a.m. (8 a.m. ET) after his inpatient treatment for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis was completed, the hospital said in a written statement.
"Speaker's physicians do not consider him completely cured yet, but his surgery and antibiotic treatment have eliminated any detectable evidence of infection, and he is non-contagious," the statement said. "He will continue antibiotic treatment for approximately two years."
Dr. Gwen Huitt, director of the hospital's adult infectious disease care unit, added, "Although we believe there are still a few tuberculosis bacteria in his lungs, ongoing antibiotic therapy should kill those. We expect him to return to a full and active life."
Speaker has been receiving antibiotics for the past eight weeks, since his arrival at the specialty hospital. He underwent surgery July 17 to remove a tennis-ball-size infection from the upper-right lobe of his lung.
Speaker could have taken a commercial airliner back to his hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, the hospital said. "But given the extraordinary attention he has received, everyone involved in the case agreed that it would be better to return home via air ambulance so as not to raise any undue public alarm."
After Speaker's decision to disregard earlier recommendations from public health officials that he not fly in a commercial jet, public health experts recommended his fellow passengers be tested for the disease.
Speaker had flown to Europe on May 12 for his wedding, despite warnings from the Fulton County Health Department in Georgia that he should not fly because he risked infecting fellow passengers.
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Since then, eight people who shared a flight with Speaker have filed a lawsuit against him, seeking $1.3 million in damages.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said her clients include a ninth person who is related to one of the passengers but was not on the flight.
One of the passengers, a 72-year-old man, has tested positive for TB on a skin test, though it appears unlikely that Speaker was the source. The man's X-rays were normal, his lawyer said.
Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Speaker in May that he has a rare form of tuberculosis -- extensively resistant TB -- which often proves fatal. But on July 3, doctors in Denver changed the diagnosis to multi-drug resistant TB, a less dangerous but still potentially fatal form of the illness.
Upon his return Thursday to Georgia, the lawyer's parents met Speaker and drove him to an undisclosed location where he will continue his recuperation, the hospital said.
A spokesman for the Hall County Health Department said Speaker was slated to travel there Friday for his medication. Hall County, north of Atlanta, includes Lake Lanier, a recreation area where Speaker's family owns a house.
With his release, Speaker has also been released from a Denver Public Health isolation order. He has been told to seek medical care, to continue with his directly observed therapy for two years and to follow up with his doctors at National Jewish.
Neither Speaker nor the people around him need wear a mask, because he is no longer contagious, the hospital said.
In the past year, there have been about 124 cases of MDR-TB in the United States. About half of those patients have elected to undergo the surgery to remove the diseased portion of their lungs. E-mail to a friend
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