Earl Rhodes, safety manager for the Metro Transit Authority, said the driver tried to wake the man up because the bus was almost at the last stop, WSMV-TV reported.

"And he got upset and then he just got up and told her, 'You know I have TB, and I have AIDS.' She said he went into a coughing spell," Rhodes said.

The driver pulled over and told the other passengers to leave the bus, getting off herself. She said the man coughed in the area around the empty driver's seat.

Public health officials said casual contact with someone with tuberculosis is not dangerous and that the passengers would have had to spend several hours with him to be at risk.