1. If you have a broken status file then you have to back up first: 

 `$ sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/status /var/lib/dpkg/status.old`

 2. Try to recover status file from /var/backups: 

 `$ sudo cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status && sudo apt update`

 3. If still an error, so try next backup file:

 `$ sudo gunzip -k /var/backups/dpkg.status.1.gz && sudo mv /var/backups/dpkg.status.1 /var/lib/dpkg/status && sudo apt update`

 4. When apt updates without errors then you need to compare current status file with old corapted (use strings because file has binary data):

 `$ diff <(strings /var/lib/dpkg/status | grep 'Package:' | sort | uniq) <(strings /var/lib/dpkg/status.old | grep 'Package:' | sort | uniq)`

 5. After that you will see difference and can reinstall packeges missing in current status file to add:

 `$ sudo apt install $(diff <(strings /var/lib/dpkg/status | grep 'Package:' | sort | uniq) <(strings /var/lib/dpkg/status.old | grep 'Package:' | sort | uniq) | grep '>' | awk '{ print $3 }') --reinstall`

 6. Then check md5 sums of all packages, and if find such pkgs reinstall them:

 `$ sudo debsums -s`