The mosquito nets raised during the Ashton vs. CNN Twitter race are being distributed to save lives NOW. A simple tweet that turned into the “Most Re-Tweeted Message” on World Malaria Day (WMD) 2009 is helping to provide 89,724 life-saving nets in Senegal.

The “Twitter Nets” are rolling out in Saraya to provide 7,000 mosquito nets to villagers in need, and the remaining nets will go to African households in Velingara. The distributions are helping close the malaria protection gap in both villages, granting everyone at risk of malaria in Saraya and Velingara universal access to a net. The distribution of “Twitter Nets” will wind down in March, in time for you to ramp up your tweeting for WMD on April 25, 2010.

On top of distributing nets, MNM is bringing Twitter to Senegal! Villagers attending the distribution have been posing with a Twitter frame to say “thank you” to the “twitosphere” (all of you!) for raising awareness of malaria and providing them with life-saving nets. And of course, none of this could have happened without our partners on the ground, the Peace Corps, Tostan and World Vision.

You can find photos here. To keep the social media momentum going, please post them to your Facebook profiles and tweet them from your Twitter accounts!

Wow.

So I’m sitting at home, watching the People’s Choice Awards after a long day fighting the malaria fight in the MNM offices, when Ashton Kutcher (or @aplusk as his Twitter following knows him) wins the award for Favorite Web Celebrity.

Awesome! Ashton and the Twitter community have been incredibly generous to Malaria No More and we’re psyched to be deploying the Twitter Nets in Senegal. Great to see that he’s getting the recognition he deserves…

…but then he takes it a step further by mentioning Malaria No More to the whole crowd, including one of our fearless leaders, MNM co-founder Ray Chambers.

That’s taking things to a whole new level, @aplusk and Katalyst! Thanks for the shout-out and be sure to stay tuned in the coming weeks so we can show you exactly how Twitter is having impact and saving lives on-the-ground in Africa.

CNN’s day of reckoning arrived last night.

As promised during Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter race with CNN to one million followers, Ashton arrived in Atlanta to “ding dong ditch” Ted Turner’s house.

But, once again, CNN got punk’d.

Nothing that Ted’s “doesn’t really have an accessible house…or an accessible doorbell”, Ashton and team decided to go after the media empire itself. Last night, Ashton unfurled a banner with his Twitter name—aplusk—over CNN’s neon logo on the roof of the Atlanta headquarters.

Earlier on, Ashton, Demi and a group of loyal Tweeps arrived at a Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant (Ted Turner’s restaurant in Atlanta), where they neatly stacked hundreds of boxes of Ding Dongs in front of the restaurant, then each person banged a bronze bell out front.

The support for World Malaria Day on Twitter is outstanding! Thanks to everyone for keeping the spotlight on malaria and showing how every individual can help save a life.

Be sure to check out a video on the Twitter Blog that shows the whole story arc of this phenomenal adventure, starting when @aplusk challenged CNN to a race to a million followers—and malaria emerged as the victor!

So far, Ashton Kutcher, CNN and others have pledged over 65,000 nets to the fight against malaria. And individual Tweeters have donated almost 6,000 mosquito nets through malarianomore.org.

Keep up the great work, keep tweeting and follow @malarianomore to keep up with the latest news!

Twitter Nation, you guys are amazing! This has been an incredible couple of days—all thanks to you, Ashton and everyone who has helped raise awareness by leveraging your voices through Twitter.

Here’s my personal thank you to all of you for your efforts (pardon the cheesy hotel room decor)! Let’s keep an eye toward World Malaria Day on April 25th…keep tweeting, keep raising awareness and keep saving lives!!

Best,
Scott

Follow us on Twitter @malarianomore and find out what else you can do to make your voice heard!

Hey, everybody—the race is on!

Help Ashton Kutcher reach 1 million Twitter followers before CNN and he’ll donate 10,000 mosquito nets to Malaria No More. We’re pulling for him and hope you will too!

In fighting malaria, we need to use every tool in our arsenal…and Twitter is a new foot soldier in the battle against this deadly disease! See how social networking can motivate thousands of people and make a huge difference in the lives of families across Africa.

Follow Ashton on Twitter and help him reach his (and our!) goal.