Despite church elders' protests, authorities forcibly vaccinated about a dozen children whose parents are members of a Ghana church that shuns modern medicine, officials said Wednesday.

Police escorted Ghanaian health workers as they gave the vaccinations against whooping cough, diphtheria and measles to around 12 children from the Kyirebentua Faith Church in Akim Oda, about 140 kilometers (85 miles) north of the capital, Accra.

"The immunization is a national exercise and is in the interest of the children so the church has no point preventing the authorities from doing their job," said Benjamin Oppong, a deputy commissioner at Ghana's Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice.

The church organization — which was established in Ghana in 1942 and now claims about two dozen churches across the west African country — disavows modern medical practices, believing instead that faith and prayer can cure illnesses.

"Since I was born into the church some 56 years ago, I have never received any medication," a senior member of the Akim Oda congregation, Theodore Dwamena, told reporters.

"We shall keep on praying and cast these foreign materials out of their system," he said of the childrens' inoculations.