Local Britehouse subsidiary and Microsoft development house, 3fifteen, along with its group company, Internet Solutions, have announced the completion and official go-live of a Web site the companies designed and agreed to host free of charge for the Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS) foundation of South Africa.

Roger Trummer, Sales Director of 3fifteen, says the organisations elected to support the foundation because APS is a very serious, yet common disorder and that staggeringly little is known about the disease outside expert medical circles today.
 
 
"There is thus a massive need to raise awareness for APS," he says. "By supporting this worthy cause in this way, we believe we can make a real difference."

Jane Martin, founder and chairlady of the foundation of South Africa, says the new site will be a serious help to her efforts to inform and educate both the public and the medical profession about APS.

She says the new site finally gives the foundation a professional looking, well designed and comprehensive home on the Internet from which we can begin to co-ordinate efforts and achieve on the goals of APSSA.

"We are absolutely delighted at this very generous offer from 3fifteen and Internet Solutions," she says. "The new site is a vast improvement on our previous effort, both in terms of look and feel, and content."

Martin adds that because 3fifteen designed the site with a content management system, she is now able to keep information up to date and evolve the site's content mix as required.

"The static nature of our previous Web presence quite simply didn't allow for that - this is a massive improvement for me. I cannot thank them enough, this was so badly needed," she says.

"Because there is relatively little known about the disease, it's not something that ranks highly in most people's agenda. This has meant that funding has been in short supply.

"The fact that 3fifteen and Internet Solutions agreed to develop and host the new site for us free of charge has given us incredible support and enabled us to reach out and help others more effectively," she adds.

Trummer concludes that 3fifteen is always on the lookout for under-supported causes to support, such as the APS foundation.

"We feel that our efforts yield the best results when they're channelled to causes that haven't classically been well supported. We are happy to have been of assistance," he concludes.

The new site can be found at http://www.apssafoundation.co.za

APS foundation

APSSA is a foundation formed to promote much needed awareness of the Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS). This syndrome is also known as Hughes Syndrome (UK) and the condition is often referred to as "Sticky Blood". Despite being hailed around the world as one of the most important discoveries of the past 50 years, no one beyond a select band has heard of APS, even though it has implications in all areas of medicine, and is now being recognised as affecting thousands, if not millions, of people all over the world. APS is an auto-immune disorder that tends to cause the blood to clot more readily. Some of its many symptoms include stroke, pulmonary embolism, DVT, heart attack, frequent severe headache/migraine, repeated miscarriage, late foetal death, pre-eclampsia, infertility, vertigo, vision problems and much more.