India, Sept. 26 -- Few public health transformations in India's history match the shift underway against tuberculosis. Under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, India no longer waits for patients to arrive with symptoms. It goes looking for them.

Bihar took that mandate seriously. Against a target of screening 10 million people for TB by August 14, I was informed, that we have screened nearly double that number.

Nearly half of all TB cases present without symptoms, silently spreading transmission, and Bihar's incidence remains well above the national average. Closing that gap meant expanding the tools to find people before they knew they were sick.

This is not the first time Bihar has led rather than followed. Patna was one of three cities ch...