It can lead to an increase in pyogenic infections from encapsulated bacteria.

Many encapsulated bacteria are pathogens that lead to a significant amount of morbidity and mortality.

Young children do not have the ability to make antibodies to polysaccharide and are, therefore, more susceptible to encapsulated bacteria.

These molecules play a role in opsonization of extracellular organisms, encapsulated bacteria in particular.

Patients typically present in early childhood with recurrent infections, in particular with extracellular, encapsulated bacteria.

The use of capsular polysaccharides as immunoprophylactic agents against human disease caused by encapsulated bacteria is now firmly established.

Encapsulated bacteria are antiphagocytic and hence are susceptible to antibody mediated immune response (B cells) as opposed to cell mediated immune response.

Asplenia is a form of immunodeficiency, increasing the risk of sepsis from polysaccharide encapsulated bacteria, and can result in overwhelming post splenectomy infection (OPSI), often fatal within a few hours.

Polysaccharide encapsulated bacteria, frequently referred to simply as encapsulated bacteria and less precisely called encapsulated organisms, are a group of bacteria that have an outer covering, a bacterial capsule, made of polysaccharide.