Washington ? South Carolina is in. Utah and Alabama, too.

Some states aren’t waiting for an Aug. 1 deadline to seek help from the federal government in buying anti-flu medicine for a possible pandemic.

“We figure it is certainly better to do it and move forward with the purchase and hope we never have to use it than not and wish that we had,” said Jim Beasley, spokesman for South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control.

As part of its preparations, the federal government is stockpiling Tamiflu and other anti-flu medications, which can reduce the symptoms associated with influenza. The Bush administration plans to buy enough to treat 44 million people.

States can buy more if they want. The government is negotiating a price with Roche Laboratories Inc., which makes Tamiflu, and will pay a quarter of the costs, up to a prescribed amount for each state. In all, states could use the subsidy to buy anti-flu medications for an additional 31 million people.

The Department of Health and Human Services had set a July 1 deadline for states to indicate whether they would move forward with the purchase, but some states wanted more time, said spokesman Bill Hall. The deadline was moved to Aug. 1.

There have been three influenza pandemics in the United States during the last century. Officials fear that a virus in birds, the H5N1 virus, could mutate and spread from human to human. The World Health Organization reports that at least 229 people have contracted bird flu since 2003; 131 of them have died.