Slumdog is a great movie but I was totally floored by the poverty and poor sanitary conditions. I recently saw a news report that childhood polio is still rampant in 4 countries. Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
The saddest thing is that it does not cost much to give vaccines to the children. And furthermore the vaccine is given orally which is much easier than with needles. So what we have is a case of broken infrastructure. Basically these countries do not have the ability to even administer the most basic of healthcare nor do they even have a system in place.
It is not the money because there are many foundations that can raise this sorts of money (heck the Indian Billionaires alone could pool together a few hundred million - didn't one have a $100M wedding party!) but the problem is that there is no system in place to distribute the vaccine.
As a result of this failure, young children lose use of their limbs and are forced to fend for themselves in a failed society.
Really very very sad.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr56/en/index.html