A study released in the Annals of Internal Medicine Monday may reveal the beginning of a new AIDS-type scare: a high percentage of gay men are found infected with a drug resistant bacterium, being transmitted through anal sex.

It is not a virus, like HIV, though. The bacterium is called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA and has been found in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, Reuters reported.

It may be considered an epidemy, considering that MRSA killed about 19,000 people in the United States just in 2005.

The infection can cause severe problems, including abscesses and skin ulcers and the bacteria can invade through the skin to produce necrotizing fasciitis, thus the name “Flesh-Eating Bacteria.” Pneumonia, damage to the heart, abscesses and infection in the buttocks and genitalia. It can be serious enough to force amputation of infected limbs.

It is being called USA300 strain of MRSA, a bacteria found originally in almost thirty percent of the population, and with ill consequences previously restricted to hospital infections.

The USA300 strain appeared in 2001 and initially spread through injection drug users, prison inmates and the homeless. Today, though, it can be found in larger than usual percentages among the male gay community.

MRSA USA300 is a bacterium that is resistant to a large number of broad spectrum antibiotics including methicillin, oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin.

So far two cases have been confirmed in the UK, according to Britain´s Channel 4 News.

The authors of the study warned that the infection could soon spread among other groups, becoming an even wider threat.

Researchers suggest scrubbing with soap and water might be the most effective way to stop skin-to-skin transmission, particularly following sexual activities.

Here is what it looks like: