A rare condition surged among previously unaffected groups of people during the COVID-19 pandemic and led to the deaths of nine patients, researchers say. The condition is a type of autoimmune response linked to the body immune system mistakenly attacking itself. Intriguingly, the system being attacked normally works as a sentinel or guard, whose job it is to detect invading viruses. It is mainly seen in East Asian women and girls and was very uncommon in the UK. But researchers who were examining data on MDA5 autoimmunity in Yorkshire during the pandemic noted an unprecedented 60 cases among mainly white men and women. Researchers investigating the increase in cases believe that exposure to the COVID-19 virus may trigger the condition, which causes distinctive skin rashes, pneumonia and interstitial lung disease, a rapidly progressing lung inflammation with damage which is often fatal.