I grew up in India. It wasn't uncommon at all to see people of my parents' generation with pockmarks from Small Pox or handicaps (and stories of deaths) from polio. Their generation saw first hand the horrors of these diseases and recognized the importance of vaccines. They still speak fondly of how lucky it is that vaccines were available by the time their kids (my generation) were born.
So developing countries are pretty serious about vaccinations.
However, things are changing with the new generation. The new generation (born in 70s/80s) have been exposed to far less horrors and especially among the upper-middle class folks, there are strains of anti-vax there too. Let's not forget, in countries like India (in my experience), homeopathy and other pseudoscientific 'cures' are more popular than in the developed world (probably due to the fact that the average person in the developed world has better access to good modern-medicine care).
The health problems in the developing world are in areas like maternal and neonatal health, where the consequences of poor care aren't as obvious or direct. Atul Gawande points out that this is a bit like how we aren't as afraid of the risk of auto accidents as we are of serial killers, even though the former is astronomically more likely to kill a person than the latter [1].
I grew up in India as well and I can second this comment. There is something to be said for seeing first hand the effects of a disease.
Speaking from personal experience, my brother developed a bad reaction to a polio vaccine and developed a mild form of polio that eventually went after a year of struggle. That didn't stop my parents from further vaccinations. It was understood that vaccines have side effects but getting the disease would have been far worse.
I worry we need to see an actual measles death here in the US before people start seeing the actual benefit of vaccines in the cost/benefit calculation.
So developing countries are pretty serious about vaccinations.
However, things are changing with the new generation. The new generation (born in 70s/80s) have been exposed to far less horrors and especially among the upper-middle class folks, there are strains of anti-vax there too. Let's not forget, in countries like India (in my experience), homeopathy and other pseudoscientific 'cures' are more popular than in the developed world (probably due to the fact that the average person in the developed world has better access to good modern-medicine care).
The health problems in the developing world are in areas like maternal and neonatal health, where the consequences of poor care aren't as obvious or direct. Atul Gawande points out that this is a bit like how we aren't as afraid of the risk of auto accidents as we are of serial killers, even though the former is astronomically more likely to kill a person than the latter [1].
[1] Atul Gawande, "Slow Ideas," The New Yorker, July 2013: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/slow-ideas