For the third time, a test measuring how contagious tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker might be has come back negative – meaning the 31-year-old’s chances of passing on his disease are “extremely low,” doctors say.
The “sputum smear test” done at National Jewish Medical and Research Center helps evaluate if there are large numbers of TB organisms in a patient’s sputum. If TB bacteria can be seen in a sputum sample, then the patient is considered “smear positive,” and potentially contagious.
A “smear negative” patient such as Speaker could still transmit the disease, doctors say, but the risk is much lower.
Speaker, who made headlines worldwide after traveling to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon with extensively drug resistant TB, remains confined to his hospital room under a Denver isolation order.
