The study highlighted that women between their 6th and 35th week of pregnancy are especially susceptible to the Zika virus.
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The WHO last month advised pregnant women to consider delaying travel to areas where Zika is spreading.
The other two types of cells were stem cells and neurons.
It is widely thought that the Zika outbreak is to blame, but this has not been scientifically confirmed.
Damage caused by Zika virus to these cells, which are differentiating to become neurons, correspond to the defects observed in the brain resulting in microcephaly, researchers found these.
Scientists have already observed traces of the virus in brains of fetuses that died including the placentas of infected women. Autochthonous Zika virus transmission has been reported in 31 countries and territories of this region.
Eight travel-associated cases of Zika have been confirmed in California since the start of 2016 according to California Department of Public Health records as of March 4.
Florida State University researchers have made a major breakthrough in the quest to learn whether the Zika virus is linked to birth defects with the discovery that the virus is directly targeting brain development cells and stunting their growth. But unlike some of those viruses, there is no vaccine to prevent Zika or medicine to treat the infection.
Laboratory studies have shown that Zika can infect a type of neural stem cell that gives rise to the cerebral cortex of the brain, according to research published online in Cell Stem Cell.
The researchers tested Zika’s effect on these cells using a Zika virus stock grown in mosquito cells, to replicate the means by which the virus infects human beings.
“Zika virus has been found in the brains of aborted babies with small heads” , said Guo-Li Ming, Johns Hopkins University neurology professor.
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In Maryland, four people have been diagnosed with the Zika virus, and there have been more than 100 cases nationwide-primarily among travelers who have visited affected countries. “And that’s the reason we’ve asked the Emergency Committee again next week to convene and look at these data”, the WHO’s Aylward said, referring to a group of independent experts chaired by David Heymann.
