{"id":10768,"date":"2026-05-01T15:05:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/10768\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:05:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:05:37","slug":"asf-spain-infected-zones-expanded-virus-could-impact-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/10768\/","title":{"rendered":"ASF Spain: Infected zones expanded; virus could impact Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img width=\"848\" height=\"565\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-01-ASF-Spain-copy-clean-jpg-848x565.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-single-post size-single-post wp-post-image\" alt=\"A sign informing visitors to stay on the path due to ASF in northern Spain. Photo: Vincent ter Beek\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>A sign informing visitors to stay on the path due to ASF in northern Spain. Photo: Vincent ter Beek<\/p>\n<p class=\"Intro intro\">In order to get a better grip on African Swine Fever (ASF), the authorities in Spain have expanded the inner infected zone (infected zone II).<\/p>\n<p>That was needed because mid-April, a new case of ASF was found in Castellbisbal, which was located in a different municipality than all other cases. The inner infected zone now measures in total 36 km east to west and 43 km north to south. That meant that outer zone infected zone (infected zone I) had to be expanded as well with a few municipalities.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last week, the number of outbreaks amongst the wild boar population in Spain further increased to 297. Authorities confirmed 13 new cases in the report that was released on April 30. In total the infected animals were found in 12 municipalities, spread out over 3 districts (comarcas). Apart from the infected animals, the Spanish <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapa.es\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food<\/a> (MAPA) have now analysed the carcasses of 4,181 non-infected animals, of which 3,326 got shot or caught and 855 were existing carcasses.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>ASF and the Tour de France<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the ASF outbreak is likely also going to affect this summer\u2019s top cycling event Tour de France. This year\u2019s edition of the cycling event through France kicks off with 3 stages in the north of Spain. For July 5, a stage is planned that goes from Tarragona to Barcelona, with a stretch of a few kilometres through the Collserola Natural Park, which is currently infected with ASF. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavanguardia.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia<\/a>, the authorities have asked the cycling match\u2019 organisation to change the route, so that the cyclists will not enter the infected area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The government would be proposing that \u201cout of responsibility and rigor in the management of the outbreak that has affected Catalonia since 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The stretch is about 40 km before the finish line. According to the newspaper, simply forbidding the audience to come and see the cyclists during that stretch wouldn\u2019t be an option. Last year, something similar happened when a planned stage in the Tour de France was altered because of the presence of Lumpy Skin Disease in cattle.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Join 18,000+ subscribers Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated about all the need-to-know content in the pigsector, three times a week.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"gform_required_legend\">&#8220;*&#8221; indicates required fields<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Vincent-1-kopieren.jpg\" class=\"attachment-image-1-1 size-image-1-1\" alt=\"ter Beek\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sign informing visitors to stay on the path due to ASF in northern Spain. Photo: Vincent ter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8271,8272,5,8273,230],"class_list":{"0":"post-10768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-african-swine-fever","9":"tag-disease-control","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-outbreak","12":"tag-spain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}