Parents usually try to steer their children away from ingredients like sugar and artificial cherry flavouring. But this fall, those pedestrian food additives might help treat some children stricken with the flu.

With the liquid children’s version of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu in short supply, pharmacists are making their own children’s version by mixing cherry syrup with the contents of the Tamiflu capsules.

But not just any cherry syrup. The prescribing information for Tamiflu lists cherry syrup made by Humco Holding Group as one of the approved liquids to mix with the medicine.

“Our volume has exploded,” said Greg Pulido, the chief executive of Humco, based in Texarkana, Texas. The company typically sells about 50,000 pint-size bottles of the syrup each year. But with the spread of pandemic H1N1 influenza, also known as swine flu, Humco shipped 100,000 bottles in September alone. In October it is planning to make 400,000 bottles.

The liquid version of Tamiflu is scarce because Roche, the manufacturer of the drug, is concentrating on making the capsules used by adults and older children, which it says is a quicker way to increase world supplies. The same production capacity needed to produce a liquid treatment for one person can be used to make capsules for more than 10 people, Roche says.

Spokesman for Walgreens, Jim Cohn, said the shortages of liquid Tamiflu were sporadic and mainly in the South. The company’s pharmacists are compounding, or making a liquid version themselves, when necessary.