Polio program

On HBO this week is "The Final Inch" (Wednesday,April 1, on the HBO2 channel, from 7 to 7:45 p.m.), a tender documentary about efforts to eradicate polio in the non-Western world. Decades after it disappeared in developed countries, the disease is still maiming and killing children in countries like India. Yet over the years, millions have joined efforts there to vaccinate every child. To keep up with newborns, teams search inside slum huts, at train stations, among indentured workers at brick factories. The result -- only 873 cases last year -- is a triumph but also a reminder that each new infection can start an epidemic . The strange beauty in all this is the zeal and high hopes with which the vaccination campaign and its workers march on.