JOHANNESBURG, Oct 29 (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki has stoked a row with a pharmaceutical giant by asserting that the internationally-used anti-AIDS drug AZT is dangerous to health.

Defending his government's refusal to sanction the drug's use to combat South Africa's spiralling AIDS problem, Mbeki told the lower house of parliament on Thursday that it would be "irresponsible" to sanction the drug as its efficacy was unproven.

Pharmaceutical multinational Glaxo Wellcome retorted that Mbeki had been "misinformed" about the safety of AZT, which had been approved safe for use even in countries with such stringent regulations as the United States and Germany.

"For more than a decade, AZT has extended and improved the quality of life of millions of people living with HIV/AIDS around the globe," according to the company's medical director in South Africa, Peter Moore.

South Africa's own Medicines Control Council had approved the drug, he added.

Mbeki told the National Council of the Provinces that there were legal cases pending against AZT in South Africa, the UK and the US.

There was also a large volume of scientific literature which claimed that the drug's toxicity was a danger to health, Mbeki said.

"These are matters of great concern to the government, as it would be irresponsible not to heed the dire warnings which medical researchers have been making."

There have been widespread calls in South Africa to make the drug available to AIDS patients, rape survirvors and pregnant women with HIV to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

Some 3.6 million South Africans -- one in 11 -- are HIV positive, according to government figures released in July.

"We are confronted with the scourge of HIV/Aids against which we must leave no stone unturned to save ourselves from the catastrophe which this disease poses," Mbeki said.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told the South African Press Association there was a body of scientific research and information indicating AZT was a dangerous drug.

She said it further weakened the immune system because it was unable to target only the HIV virus.

There was also a danger that because of "mutation", mothers taking the drug might produce children with deformities.

Tshabalala-Msimang said her ministry would not like to look back 10 or 15 years down the line and find it had exposed the "vast majority" of historically-disadvantaged people in South Africa to a dangerous drug.

"We have to be very cautious, very sensitive," she said.

Moore said Mbeki's views could raise unwarranted concerns among patients using AZT leading them to stop the treatment without consulting their doctors.

He said that while Glaxo Wellcome applauded Mbeki's commitment to fighting AIDS and welcomed the opportunity to discuss his concerns about AZT, "the company honestly believes that in this case the president has been misinformed".

In contrast to Mbeki, KwaZulu-Natal Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, a member of Mbeki's African National Congress, recently suggested that African countries purchase AZT in bulk for distribution.

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