Table 1b. The most deadly infectious agents utilize PS.

Rank 2006	Disease	Pathogen	Class	Mortality rate (2006) Deaths ww/ 1000	PS involvement	Citations
2	AIDS	HIV	V	49	PS exposure of the virion	Callahan et al.119
4	Tuberculosis (TB)	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	B	27	PS-Decarboxylase	Divangahi et al.120; Chen et al.121
5	Malaria	Plasmodium spp.	P	22	PS exposure on infected RBC	Eda and Sherman122
6	Measles	Paramyxovirus/ Morbillivirus	V	11	Energy consumption —> PS exposure on host cells	Anderton et al.123
7	Pertussis	Bordetella pertussis	B	5	PS-Decarboxylase, PS exposure on host cells	Kawai124
8	Tetanus	Clostridium tetani	B	4	Tetanustoxin forms ion channels in PS bilayers	Rauch et al.125
10	Syphilis	Treponema pallidum	B	3	PS exposure	Belisle et al.126
11	Acute Hepatits B	Hepatitis B Virus	V	2	PS exposure of the virion	De Meyer et al.110
1	Respiratory infections	Multiple pathogens	B, F, V	69	No information due to multiple pathogens
3	Diarrheal diseases	Multiple pathogens	B, F, V, P	32
9	Meningitis (all)	Multiple pathogens	B, F, V	3
12—17	Tropical diseases	Multiple pathogens	B, F, V	2
	Small pox	Variola virus	V	0	PS exposure of the virion	Mercer and Mazzon127
	Leishmaniasis	Leishmania spp.	P	0,0069 (2010)	PS exposure of the parasite and of infected neutrophils	van Zandbergen et al.128
	Trypanosomiasis	Trypanosoma spp.	P	0,0014 (2010)	PS exposure of bystander cells	De Souza et al.129; DaMatta et al.93
	Ebola	Ebola	V	0,011 (2014)	PS exposure of the virion	Morizone and Chen65

Abbreviations: B, bacteria; F, fungi; P, parasite; V, virus

In several of the most deadly infectious diseases, ranked by the death toll worldwide per 1000 people (2006), PS is reportedly involved in the etiopathogenesis. This may reflect the potency of PS bearing microorganisms to evade immune recognition. All statistical data are based on WHO reports from 1993–2014