Pokerus: A brief history and explaination

Pokerus has been briefly explained as a method to speed the EV training process. And really, this is its only currently known function. But I will attempt to give you a full explanation of it, its uses, and its history in the pokemon world as it exists right now.

Pokerus is a disease that pokemon may contract from wild encounters on occasion. It cannot be healed at the pokemon center as it is a virus, tiny life forms living on the pokemon, so the nurses cannot kill them. They will, however, give you the courtesy of informing you that your pokemon has been infected.
It will wear off on its own, given enough time. A pokemon that is in the box storage system will keep it indefinitely, though.

Pokerus was first discovered in Johto (the Gold, Silver, and Crystal series) and had a 3 in 65,536 of being on a wild pokemon. Through battling and either capturing or defeating this pokemon, you would obtain the virus. By having a pokemon with pokerus in your party, the virus will spread to the rest of the team over a period of time. Trust me when I say this is a good thing. For once.
A pokemon with pokerus or that has had pokerus in the past will grow and develop much faster than a pokemon that hasn't. The specifics of this function was described in my EV training report already. If you want to know more about that application, you can read about it there.

The virus has remained relatively unchanged from when it was first discovered. It's become slightly more commonplace and has a small chance of infecting an unhatched egg, as was discovered in Hoenn (Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald). This means its is possible to hatch a pokemon already infected with the virus.


Not to brag, but I do have in my possession a number of infected pokemon for research purposes. A few of them might... 'escape'... however. If the price is right...