by FERN SHEN
     State and city officials appeared at a downtown Baltimore hospital yesterday to send a message that the swine flu vaccine is safe and that children and other high risk groups should get it — but the children’s liquid form of Tamiflu – the anti-viral drug used to treat H1N1 – is becoming hard to find in the Baltimore area.

     “It’s on back order,” said a pharmacist at the Mondawmin Target in west Baltimore. “We had ordered a dozen and we had about 10 prescriptions waiting and when we hadn’t received it, we called. They say it’s coming.”

     Well, could they mix up one of those Tamiflu kiddie cocktails, a ground-up mixture of sweet-flavored syrup and the adult Tamiflu pills, which are less scarce?

     “No, they come in a sealed pack,” said the employee, reached by phone, “we don’t do that.”

     (There’s a nationwide shortage of the liquid form of the drug because the manufacturers say the adult version is a more efficient way to quickly meet worldwide demand. With physicians no longer routinely testing to figure out which kind of flu a patient has, Tamiflu is being widely prescribed by doctors who want to err on the safe side with any symptomatic patient.)

     It was the same story elsewhere, with the H1N1 vaccine still not available in Maryland and the state entering a particularly fraught flu season.

      The downtown Baltimore Walgreen’s pharmacy on Fayette Street, for instance, was out of liquid Tamiflu today and had it on back-order. Could they grind it? An employee was advising callers to “find a compounding store,” though she had none to recommend. “I don’t even know what that is.”

     Apparently, the ancient pharmacist’s technique of compounding is becoming a lost art.

     Some pharmacies were willing to pulverize and mix, but they weren’t able to obtain the sweet fluid recommended by Tamiflu’s manufacturers. It’s apparently also in short supply.

     The CVS on South Charles St. in Federal Hill was out of liquid Tamilfu today and hasn’t had the ability to compound, but they are hoping to soon be able to, according to an employee there.

     The liquid Tamiflu picture is not much better in the suburbs.

     “We have two bottles left,” said Lauren Ward, at the Wegman’s pharmacy in Hunt Valley.

     Seasonal flu shots, meanwhile are also getting a little harder to find in stores. Area pharmacies, like Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid and Target have been offering the vaccine, generally for about $25 a shot. But many are starting to run out.

     The pharmacy at the Cockeysville Giant, for example (which, by the way, will mix up compounded liquid Tamilflu) has no more seasonal flu vaccine available.

“Tthere was a line first thing this morning,” an employee said, “and we ran out.”