An online petition urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to probe the Fort Detrick U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in the U.S. has garnered over 25 million signatures in three weeks.

It was launched on July 17 and ended at 12:00 p.m. on August 6.

The petition started as an open letter penned by a group of Chinese internet users who asked the newspaper Global Times to post their message on Chinese social media platforms WeChat and Weibo to solicit opinions from the general public.

The petition called for the probe to focus on the coronavirus origins and the safety of the U.S. laboratory.

The Fort Detrick military biolab is known for storing dangerous infectious viruses and witnessed a leak in 2019 right before the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Chinese newspaper.

The petition received half a million signatures in the first 24 hours and one million within 48 hours of going online, the Global Times said, noting that the petition website suffered severe cyberattacks from multiple IP addresses in the United States at a time when signatures approached the 10-million mark.

The international community has also attached great attention to the petition and the strong public opinion it reflected as some 3.2 million comments and interactions were from overseas, the newspaper noted.

(With input from Xinhua)