Top Senate Republican: Zika funding to get floor vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan measure to partially fund President Barack Obama's $1.9 billion request to combat the Zika virus will soon get a vote, a senior Senate Republican said on Thursday.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said the proposal, still a work in progress, is likely to be attached to an unnamed spending bill on a Senate floor vote.

"While we are reassured that there appears to be initial steps to rectifying Congress's failure to act to date, any proposal that does not provide needed assistance in this fiscal year and does not protect or replenish the funding critical to our ongoing Ebola response will be insufficient to the risks facing the country," said White House spokesman Peter Boogaard.